Mar | 2019 | Madeira Consorcio

105th Madeira Consorcio Meeting 16.3.2019

Mar 17, 2019 at 6:51 pm | Posted in Posts | Leave a comment
Tags: addiction, bailey parnell, Consorcio, European elections, fake, fb, free, friend, internet, Madeira, social media, wikipedia

We met in the RESTOCK workshop room again, and the meeting went very well!

Do. came up with the topic for the evening“Social Media Addiction”. He chose two videos:

Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? by Bailey Parnell 15 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0

Social Media addiction 13 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH5bC-SLvb4

Negative aspects of Social Media:

Social Media are addictive, as explained in the video, especially for younger people who are still insecure in their roles and tend to compare themselves to their peers. They derive a false sense of belonging and importance from the excessive use.
Lonely people pour their souls out into the Internet, basically to nowhere, and hope to be “seen”.
Social media split people apart and replace real social interaction.
Many people us fake names and harass and insult others with impunity; they lose their sense of respect and decency because the attacked persons are far away.
The effectiveness of Social Media decreases with time, as more and more Fluff or Noise is put out there.
Mouth-to-mouth recommendations are much more effective that any Social Media campaign.
Nobody know how Social Media are going to develop from here.
15% of the world energy consumption is due to the Internet.

Positive aspects of Social Media:

Websites such as Do.’s classic photos of Madeira, and the Dutch group which stays in touch (both monitored).
Long distance family connections work instantly and give a feeling of togetherness.
People can stay be in the loop with their friends and family but do not need to comment on just any photo that is posted.
It is a great tool to tell stories and present yourself, as long as marketing is not involved.

Here are some links to Do.’s sites, who monitors everything, he manages “internet etiquette”:

Madeira Quase Esquecida (Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/MadeiraQuaseEsquecida/

Madeira Quase Esquecida (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/madeiraquaseesquecida/

The story about the project ‘Madeira Quase Esquecida’ via AprenderMadeira (in Portuguese): http://aprenderamadeira.net/madeira-quase-esquecida/

Social Media in themselves are not intrinsically bad, the use can be bad or good, similar to cars or guns. But cars need a driving license and guns needs permissions (at least in Europe)

As for driving, there should be an education for parents and children, to warn about the dangers and refrain from addictive use. It should be made clear that the opinions of strangers on the internet are not paramount.

The definition of “friend” has been distorted by Facebook, but there are levels there that most people don’t know about: “acquaintances” and “good friends” also exist. If somebody is blocked from a site by an administrator because of bad behavior, they simply cannot get in anymore, they don’t receive a “justification”.

Social media are a necessity for businesses – like it or not – and can be a necessary evil for people with a public profile. C. as surgeon cannot avoid it, it would create bad will if he didn’t have a FB page, people might slander him for not having a FB page because they will try to contact him in FB (of course, he doesn’t answer any medical questions on FB).

Cl. thinks the Social Media in all (Do. says that they are many more than just the big Five) are evil. They are using behavioral science to manipulate the users and get their data to sell to other companies.

The fact is that emails are still free. If emails or tweets were to cost at least a cent (and people would have to log in to a payment system and show their identity to pay for it) then the amount of emails would drop drastically and the slanderous use would be curbed.

Ce. said that we used to get our information from journalists, philosophers, priests and teachers who put their energy into understanding the issues and explaining them to us. If the internet was had to be paid for, these groups would regain their importance and could again do a good job.

Social Media should be monitored at all times; we have seen with the events in Christchurch that attackers will post on the Internet to gain “fame” and “likes” bad content must be monitored and removed immediately.

Social Media should be used better, and everybody should have an education on it.

K. recommends a book on the topic, a novel by Sophie Kinsella” “My not so perfect Life” about a woman’s dive into Social Media and the way out of it.

Other info:

The Wikipedia Info for the European elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election

At the bottom of the page, there is a description of the coalitions/alliances which have been established; from there one can click on the coalition names and see which European parties make up this alliance.

72 Madeira Consorcio Meeting 18.8.2015

Mar 17, 2019 at 6:43 pm | Posted in Posts | Leave a comment

U. reported that the Madeira Consorcio actually has a true fan from France. He is following our Blog since some time, and asked for a meeting when he comes over after August 28, to discuss some projects he has in mind. U. will meet with him; depending on the meeting time, we can see who else can participate.

U. mentioned an article (SPIEGEL; not available in English) that Social Media are taking over state functions: in a small city in Spain, citizens can tweet pothole photos and info about broken street lights to the City Hall, who fix it the problem and tweet proof of the repair within 24 hours. This way, Social Media systems create a parallel state.

D. told us about another parallel state which worked very well: the Canadian province of Quebec had a Theocracy for hundreds of years, where the Church provided all social services, and Sunday church service attendance was at 90% – it was important to see and be seen.. After the province became part of the rest of Canada, the number dropped to 20%.

Another result of the proliferation of Smartphone services will be that UBER and other services will send driverless cars on the roads, and citizens will stop buying cars, as they can easily have a car at hand within a short time, without the cost of acquisition, taxes and insurance. An upside of this is that roads will be uncongested and parking will cease to be a problem. The downside is that taxi drivers and similar profession will be out of work.

Last time, the group decided to do a hands-on project and help E. establish his dream of Arte Sanna bread. In our discussion, we deducted that the project has the following points to be taken care of:

The project and the product need a good name, to help get a grip on it. We made a brainstorming on this and next time the, pros and cons have to be discussed:

Arte Sanna Breads	Sour Dough Delight	Tão Pão!	Golden Bread	Ganas Flute
Massa Critica	Upper Crust	Top Slice	Best Slice	Crumbs
Bio Crumbs	Bio Crust	Organic Crust	The Good Grain	Bread with Passion
Passion Bread	Ancestral Breads	Ancestral Leavening	Ancestral Wheats	Bread Heaven

These proposals should be weighed based on the questions:

What is the target group?
English / International or Portuguese?
Can we have a “hybrid” name, understood by all?
Who is the target group? Egberto already has potential customers in Switzerland and other countries

2 We need a good text/ slogan/ resumé about the special quality to justify a higher price (Madeira grains, clean water /air /soil, locally made, no CO2 waste for transport, ancestral, unspoiled not manipulated, clean, rustic, etc.. Dennis and Ursula will work on Egberto’s base text to extract this.

3 We need to choose a crowdfunding site from

http://www.crowdfunding.com/

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-19638-1_13

http://crowdsunite.com/category/platforms/?sort_type=alexa-amazon&filter=172

and study their conditions – how they will be paid, and what Egberto can give as thank you/prize to the subscribers.

4 We spoke about the size of Egberto’s bread, in comparison to Bruno’s goods. Smaller packages with 1/10 of content can command a higher price; a big loaf of 1 kg for 10€ has the same value but is more difficult to sell to cost conscious customers. Egberto`s bread cannot be produced in muffin size – the chemical process behind it won’t work – but it can be sliced and packaged in smaller portions.

5 We need good photos and a snappy video of max. 3-5 minutes with a good music track for the site. Ricardo can do this. Egberto has found two good videos as examples.

Aberdeen: The Bread Maker Charity http://youtu.be/LuxRlOeWjmc,

Very Nice: Australia: Barossa Sour Dough https://vimeo.com/70760988

Madeira Consorcio

72 Madeira Consorcio Meeting 18.8.2015

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