• THE CHIEF COMPONENT OF BUSINESS SUCCESS IS STRATEGIC PLANNING. As the pace of technology continuously quickens – latest being AI – and as competitive forces increasingly threaten profit margins, the importance of such planning has become more critical than ever. Strategic planning is in simplest terms about deciding only three things: (1) WHERE to go, (2) WHAT is required to get there, and (3) HOW to make that happen. It’s an ongoing process applied for the purpose of regularly assessing both perceived opportunities and potential threats, in order to optimize the rewards and minimize the risks of any business endeavor. “WHERE to go” and “WHAT to do” are typically visualized in terms of GOALS which need to be clearly definable and time-targeted, with consensus among the key team. “Strategic vision” is the phrase often used to describe this picture —which then serves as the starting point to ensure that subsequent actions remain in sync with intentions. “HOW to get there” involves delineating a specific path for the application of tactical steps, with reference to OBJECTIVES (“get there” by what means? in what time frame? by what measurement process?). After strategic vision is in place — and deemed to be realistically achievable — the next most important step becomes a formal Business Plan identifying the people, procedures and controls to make that Strategy happen. DCG has decades of expertise in guiding development and execution of Business Plans; let us help your Productivity, Profitability, and Stability.

 

  • ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS THE LATEST ALLEDGED ‘TIME SAVING’ TECHNOLOGY but doesn’t really work that way. It may save minutes or hours in digesting & reproducing existing knowledge, but “rarely delivers more leisure, instead just accelerates our pace and feeds burnout. We seldom, if ever, put tools down early, rest more, have more fun & joy, but generally feel more stressed and exhausted. Most are incapable of cashing in the Time Dividend and exchanging it for leisure; rather, like brainwashed shareholders, we hang in there, forever chasing the deeper power structures while our psyches, bodies & nervous systems become even more frayed by the frantic attempt to keep up with the speed of new technologies like AI…  Imagine workweeks structured around the quality of our care & attention, versus the quality of our activity or speed of output, a society in which a good work life balance is the new status symbol.”   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-of-self-improvement/202506/the-great-time-saving-lie 

 

  • LATEST MAJOR HACKING GAME IS FROM CYBERCRIMINALS WHO POST AS JOB-SEEKERS on platforms like LinkedIn, to infect searchers with malware delivered through fake resumes. Their objective is to gain trust for opening subsequent malicious phishing emails without clickable links, instead forcing recipients to manually type a URL which goes to a landing page that mimics personal resume portfolios (hosted on trusted cloud infrastructure including Amazon), but then allows backdoor access to the hackers. [SECURE THE VILLAGE]

 

  • GEORGE ORWELL’S MINISTRY OF TRUTH IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. The U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) representatives of 194 States have agreed to a consensus process whereby if 60 ratify and none object by July 19, a “world government will be imposed with profound implications for public health, personal freedoms and national sovereignty, giving overwhelming authority to unaccountable international bureaucrats to declare potential global emergencies – including universal health I.D.s, vaccine mandates, obligatory censorship, technology transfers, open-ended financial coasts, and declarations of global emergencies with orders including lockdowns and border closures… Despite the incompetence and malfeasance of WHO response to the Covid-19 crisis, with insidious influence of the Chinese Communist Party and principal beneficiary Big Pharma, no one would be allowed to criticize this new world order.”  Presumably, America will withdraw from the WHO, but wow!  [GATESTONE INSTITUTE]

 

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

  • Latest concern over risk to children’s minds is Mattel’s just announced collaboration with OpenAI to design and power future Barbie Dolls. Stanford University Brainstorm Lab for Mental health Innovation warns that AI Chatbots with “eerily human-like & personable qualities are not safe for anyone under age 18, since models are notorious for making up facts, hallucinating, and breaking instruction guardrails, with countless friends & family members having watched kids become obsessed with ChatGBT and spiraling into wild delusions, sometimes with tragic consequences.”  [FUTURISM]

 

  • Marriage in China can be mercenary, due to a huge imbalance of the sexes – approaching roughly 12 men for every 10 women in peak marrying-age groups. So, while Chinese law bans payment of money or gifts in connection with marriage, ‘Bride Prices’ are pretty much a standard process with prices ranging from U.S. $53K to $124K, paid either as an endowment fee from the groom’s parents either to the newlyweds, or as compensation paid entirely to the bride’s family.  [ECONOMIST]

 

  • “While most Democrats are not radicals, the destructive Left operationally controls almost every major element of their power structure and American society at large via a ‘Purity Spiral’ – having become fixated on implementing a single value that has no upper limit, and no single agreed interpretation. The result is a moral feeding frenzy.”  https://tomklingenstein.com/against-the-purity-spiral/