"Is Google's Intention to Digitize the World's Books a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, and For Whom?"

          As I keep  myself busy with my online course, the more knowledge that I received consequently by the resources and reading we have on this. We know how powerful the influence of the internet nowadays and that's exactly the focus of this university-level study as we discuss on the topic, "Understanding Media by Understanding Google" by Prof. Owen R. Youngman under Northwestern University. Hence, I would also like to share with you my reflection on our subject. 

          Quoting from the question itself, "Is Google's intention to digitize all the world's books a good thing or a bad thing, and for whom?, my answer would be both good and bad. On the first place, I would say that it is good. Why? As Google emerges as a leading contributor to the world becoming a global village, the more that relationships among people of different races become augmented since the distance among nations both near and far becomes a "mere" closer one due to innovations brought by Google like Gmail, Blogger etc. To cite another example, allow me to share with you this resource, 

          "Google will help ........and set up a €60m (£52m) fund to finance digital publishing innovation......"- http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/01/google-52m-fund-help-french-publishers

          Seeing the contribution of Google on this quoted news release, the recipients then of this act will benefit and reap the fruits of such a genuine contribution. 

          On the other hand, Google's intention to digitize all the world's books could also have some repercussions as I quoted it below:

           "If Google is the main source, what picture of reality does it give us? It is “sometimes harmful when people [..] trust a simple Google search as the first step towards the truth” (p. 78) because the results have already been filtered by your preferences, location and previous searches. You never know what Google doesn’t show you."- Book Review: The Googlization of EVerything (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan By: Floris Spronk....

          Thus it could also be bad for anybody if he/she will just absorb everything what Google say without weighing first other resources. Yes it is true that Google has made enormous contributions yet we could not deny the fact that there are other possible resources of what could have been considered as TRUTH.




                                                                

GOOD GOVERNANCE: How Relevant is this to our EVERDAY LIFE?

          While I was busy the other day checking out my blogs and trying to compose some posts, my wife Yanyan was also preoccupied with her activity on good corporate governance. She tried to ask my opinion on her topic hence I tried to educate myself on how good corporate governance affect any company.

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          Actually, based on her data, she noted that there were cases of companies being involved in irregularities thus for some, resulting to their collapse. And even if authorities in charge of monitoring such companies' performance and to check as well as act on these undesired activities, there are still companies that continue to involve with such irregularities.What was pointed out in her resources as a reason for those collapsed companies was the failure to diligently practice good company governance. 

          Thus, is good company governance really effective in providing a productive and a prosperous company?  In relation to this, one of the factors solicited from company leaders especially from the board of directors is their value on honesty, is honesty fulfilled by being efficient to one's role in behalf of the company or is it contributing gains to the company yet still doing unguarded undesirable acts while contributing positively to the company?

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          Relating to our personal life, are we practicing good personal governance in our basic and primary relationships like family and friends? How honest we are to our loved ones? Are we consistently acting and performing our roles as husbands/wives/friends in behalf of the interest of the other party or the other way around?

          This is indeed very challenging to us yet if we just think and enliven within our hearts the love that we have for our loved ones, I believe that realizing good governance in our relationships will just come out naturally and without stress. LOVE for our family and vice versa will be the guiding force that will inspire us to be consistently honest and contented everyday.

P.S. thanks to my wife, Yanyan  and our little boy Kurt, for their inspirations in this post