I haven't blogged for a while because there are hobgoblins in my computer. In spite of my best efforts, I haven't been able to evict them. This blog is being written secretly, while they're distracted by some thing else in the enigmatic innards of the machine.

So, I saw Siona's review of 'Its Not About Money' by Brent Kessel, and of course, I had to do the test, and here is what I found.

I am predominantly a Caretaker type. Worse, an Idealist. No wonder I can't get anything of my own done!


What became clear to me is that I really want to change hats and be an Empire Builder for a change.


Here's the list of things that I've been working on since January that I want to accomplish this year. Now I'm going to try on my new Empire Builder Hat ( bamboo, no carbon footprint, $1.49 at the local market) and look at them anew.

Current Projects (not in order of priority)

1. New Media Communication Backbone comprising Digital Signage/Bluetooth/SMS/WiFi/Website for Luxury Segment and for the Retail Segment. Special focuson creating a permission based interaction process, and creating ahead-of-the-market content.

2. Starting up a 'Celebrating Wellness' Facility in the Delhi NCR Area - a spa targeted specifically to the high functioning, high profile, individual who has gotten "derailed" from his or her successful life due to extreme stress and "burnout".

3. Branding and Brand Architecture for 'The Terrace Garden' Restaurant in West Delhi - a one-of-a-kind fine dining, conversations and celebrations experience. I take on just one or two advertising assignments in a year and this is one of them.

4. Co-promoting 'Art Square' - an art initiative with vibrant, young artists, some of Delhi's finest painters, sculptors, poets, sufi singers and more..

5. Marketing Soap Nuts ( Ritha Nut) under the my brand 'Wild Craft' from my new company, Nothing Added Technologies, an organization dedicated to providing the best of nature to eco-conscious consumers and supporters around the world.

Richard Florida has an intriguing question and a twist to the old marketing nostrum - "Location, location, location".

Richard Florida is the author of the 2002 best-seller The Rise of the Creative Class (Harper Collins), which received The Washington Monthly's Political Book Award, and more recently, in March 2008, a look at his hypothesis, called megaregions, in Who Is Your City? (Basic Books).

He asks. "Are you considering your next big career move?"

In "Who's Your City?," Richard Florida explains why this decision should be all about location, location, location - and profiles the top new regions with the greatest potential for career growth, and great companies.

Talent, innovation, and creativity - three crucial economic ingredients, according to Florida - are unevenly distributed across today's global economy. They concentrate in specific locations. The real source of economic growth comes from the clustering of talented and productive people. New ideas are generated and our productivity increases when we locate close to one another in cities and regions. The clustering force makes each of us more productive, which in turn makes the places we inhabit much more productive, generating great increases in output and wealth.

Because of this clustering force, a new constellation of cities and surrounding regions - not just in the United States, but in Europe and Asia - have turned into new engines of economic growth. Cities and their metropolitan corridors are morphing into new "megaregions," and magnets for great jobs and great companies alike.






I've given up adding more maps - my comp keeps hanging - but you can check out
http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/maps/ 
for a megaregion near you.

http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/maps/


Florida says that the day of the city or country as fundamental economic unit is over. Instead, he focuses on megaregions, broad swathes of cities and connecting suburbs found throughout the world. With satellite data showing lighted areas of the globe at night and finely tuned economic stats, Florida and other researchers have named over 40 different megaregions, with 13 in North America alone. A simple test for a megaregion? "A person can walk all the way across from one side to the other carrying nothing but a credit card and never get hungry or thirsty.", says Florida

I live plonk in the middle of the Delhi Lahore megaregion, according to this. I love the idea of India and Pakistan being joined in an enterprise that is productive and raises the quality of life. However, the electricity goes out several times a day, anywhere in this region, currently. And, if I had to rely on a credit card in this 'megaregion', I'd starve to death. What works here is your word: "I'll pay you when I return from Baluchistan after I've sold all these lovely carpets you've handwoven - if the bandits don't get me first." is a bit more like it! (Yes, I am exaggerating, but its not too far off.)

A megaregion must meet three key criteria. First, it must be a contiguous, lighted area with more than one major city center. Second, it must have a population of 5 million or more. Finally, it must produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. By that definition, there are some 40 megaregions in the world. If we take the largest megas in terms of population:

    * The 10 biggest are home to 666 million people, or 10 percent of world population.
    * The top 20 comprise 1.1 billion people, 17 percent of the world population;
    * The top 40 are home to 1.5 billion people, 23 percent of global population.

It's an intriguing view into global development and the rise and rise of opportunity, creativity, innovation and personal growth.

Can these regions sustain themselves with regard to food, water and electricity? How about taxes? Will they be higher here? What would be an Integralist/Spiral Dynamics view?