A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
-- Caskie Stinnett
economy.
bread and circuses
MEANING:
noun: Things intended to keep people happy and to divert their attention from the problems.
ETYMOLOGY:
Translation of Latin term panis et circenses, from panis (bread) + et (and), circenses (circuses). The term originated in the satires of Roman poet Juvenal (c. 60-140). Circus refers to the circus games, such as chariot races, held in the Roman times. The term has been loan translated into many other languages. In Spanish, for example, it is pan y toros (bread and bullfights).
USAGE:
"Madrid has set up a series of summits that look a lot like bread and circuses for a domestic audience at time of economic misery."
John Vinocur; Still Waiting for a Brave New Europe; The New York Times; Jan 4, 2010.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a heaven that it shows itself cloddish. -Evelyn Waugh, novelist (1903-1966)
Sharon, we do not have the proper teachers, and the priests who give religious education have come on the top of the lists taking the headliners in the papers. There is a brain drain and the teachers get paid so small that we wonder if we ever will have the love of the tutors who used to pat our back telling us, ?Well done. Keep up this work. You will go a long way?. Even he knew and I, me, knew that my mischievous were very tremendous. There was love. If we did not do our homework, we were pinched under the armpits, lifted and parents told of what we did. Then we would get another whacking from dad. Boy how those days have gone. Now all school wants fees and no education. We have the IT and the distant learning courses. MBA to PhD. I think all these make me realise how money minded we have become. If we close schools, where will the youth go I wonder?
It sounds to me a vague idea to venture into father to son trade. That is only for Indians in India and Chine where the Goggle is having a court case and some www removed.
An illiterate man is an empty head and he will believe in all dancing medicine men and chicken sacrifices. Would we want our children to be that?
I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA
Socialwok is the among the first mainstream social media applications that is directly aligned with the ability to get work done. Plenty of companies allow the use of Facebook, Twitter, Ning, and other utilities, as well as a variety of groupware to facilitate collaboration. However, because of its very close integration with Google Apps, the very tool adopted by millions of businesses as their groupware of choice, Socialwok is unique.
I had the chance to speak with Ming Yong, co-founder of SocialWok, about their service and installed it on my 6geeks.net domain to give it a spin. It’s difficult to do it justice in verbage, so I’ll defer to a video tour of Socialwok’s features that the company prepared:
While this is obviously a nice dog and pony show, I can certainly attest to its accuracy and the ease with which social features can be added directly (and for free) to Google Apps. Techcrunch has also covered the suite, particularly focusing on their Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz integration.
Like the other applications I’ve featured in my Apps Roulette series, Socialwok leverages most of the Apps APIs to integrate with Google Calendar, Gmail, Buzz, and Docs, tying everything together in a Facebook-style, feed-oriented interface.
Many of us have successfully implemented a Ning page or rolled out some sort of social tools either within our business or as external venues for communications. However, how often have you encountered resistance from employees who don’t want to use or check “one more site”? Most people will happily use Facebook and/or Twitter and email, though, so what if you could simply overlay the social tools in Gmail/Docs?
This, in fact, is precisely what you can do with Socialwok. As you saw in the video, you can largely live within the Socialwok interface since email, docs, appointments, etc., are all available through Socialwok. Similarly, Socialwok adds commenting and sharing capabilities to posted Docs, emails, events, etc. You can “follow” other users, forming virtual teams within an organization and organizing these teams into feeds. The same feeds, including your own, can be pushed out to Twitter, Facebook, and Buzz. Feeds can also include people outside your organization; this is particularly important given how difficult it is within vanilla Apps to collaborate with outside organizations.
Obviously I’m enthusiastic about this tool. The expanded social utility that it creates within Google Apps is quite significant and has the potential to change the way a lot of companies work. This won’t be for everyone; many organizations are absolutely not ready to embrace social media within their business processes, no matter how progressive Google Apps may be standing alone. However, for those looking at ways to improve collaboration and communication in a manner that fits with users existing expectations in the Facebook age, then Socialwok needs to be on your very short list of tools that can make this happen.
