We put forward our clocks here in New Zealand last weekend, and I decided to cease making the changes on the office computers from this point. For the last 15 years or so, the Jack Yan & Associates head office has worked on US eastern time, and we have made the change to GMT. No more putting clocks forward or back.
   Part of the move is personal: I would not mind knowing what time it is in Great Britain, so I can call Brigid, not that that took that much mind power. New Zealand tends to be 11, 12 or 13 hours different from the UK depending on the time of year, so it is usually a matter of changing a.m. to p.m. and vice versa.
   Professionally, more of the Medinge meetings that I am called to do are on GMT, even if last time the Poms got it mixed up and met an hour earlier (looking at their clocks during British summer time)—missing me out in the process.
   But it marks a change in the de-emphasis of the United States in our group. While it will always remain an important market, and the one that is the primary market for our font sales, we decided to internationalize more. More JY&A activities are taking part in Asia, for example, and these contractors and affiliates tell time based on GMT, too.
   It got me thinking more, too, about American values, which I have often defended on this blog. While everyday people and their politicians are two very disparate groups—and the United States remains a fine country if you ever have the pleasure of talking to decent, regular Americans daily—the negative image of the US as a whole does affect how all of us in the west can get our agenda through to others.
   The ugly side rears its head often in the mainstream media, which thrives on negativity: Bob Woodward going on about how Iraq is the new Vietnam, skipping over casualty figures on both sides in both wars; the self-criticism, self-loathing and self-shaming that seem to be de rigueur in news delivery.
   Certainly, there is a lot of badness. Corruption in governments and corporations. Abuse of host countries in which globalization has taken place. All of which leads many countries that the west is trying to convince to ask, ‘Why should we follow your values?’
   The good side, unfortunately, doesn’t come up.
   Dealing in the fashion industry has taught me that the US is among the worst when it comes to cordiality in that field: it is dog eat dog, and ‘What favour can you do me?’ Some of the offenders in this business make The Sopranos look like Blue Peter. While I have real friends in that business in New York and Los Angeles, and in Miami, they are outnumbered by the dorks. In that profession, I have to ask, ‘Why should I follow your values?’
   Until we show some improvement in living our values, that question is going to keep coming up, in the political sphere, and in the professional sphere. If we want to win the hearts and minds of people against those who may wish to fight against our freedoms—a scenario that the President paints regularly—then we need to look at our immediate communities and stamp out anything that does not align with universally held ideas of what is right.
   We also owe it to ourselves to reach out, as individuals, to countries which see us negatively, and I still hold a belief that the blogosphere is where this can happen. Comment on someone else’s blog in these countries and see what happens.
   If I did not have daily dealings with genuine Americans Stateside, I would have ranted like some crazed anti-American pizza seller years ago. Well, maybe I wouldn’t. I have way too much faith in human nature to do that. But I am sure some would, and as an easterner living among westerners, I think these values are worth expressing and sharing. Let’s not let people fall through the cracks. Posted by Jack Yan, 06:41  permalink

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