Who owns your firm?

A lot of what occurs on the market is fairly complex. Some of it is very political, and some, simply a case of a person running through the few last years of their life.

Perhaps the latter is the case for Rupert Murdoch.

Imagine how you would feel, meeting a world that is drastically expanding, at and an advanced age, and having billions of sterling pounds at your disposal without a clear path to a seat in parliament or to becoming a Prime Minister of England.

Not suggesting failing capacity, but the same occurred here in California where very a wealthy business person sought a seat in government with no experience, little if any prior community interest dispensing huge sums of money in an effort to seek control. Ms. Peg Witman of course was denied this frill in the last election.

But what is control? Is it to make hundreds of millions more, or to leave a lasting impression on society or in life.

Personally given that a person facing the last few years alive, or the last few years in a career, profession, marriage, ability or appeal can have many aggressors - and many of them imagined, fabricated to substantiate their fear.

Aquent, which is a staffing agency in the U.S., mentioned here or on Biznik, owned by Robert Half International - jumping to my point - is less interested in placement than it is in gathering intelligence on U.S. capabilities, business tactics, and for securing intelligence on U.S. business activities domestic and foreign.

How this works is simple. Floating a service of finding the right person for the task, and using a tool such as a registration site, where contacts, designers of a wide range of professional quality - from junior to mid senior, print to IA to junior BI - you can gauge the interest, flow and demand, and extract, loads and demands from internal corporate efforts.

Designers with specific skill sets where a candidate receives a meet in the office gives an insight into what the company has planned. The number of designers applying themselves to secure work, is an accurate gauge of the economy.

Companies spend on us so consumers can spend on products and services. Providing the "hey, we're ready" signals a flow of product, and the flow of cash which is the economy. A healthy economy.

To give it a bit more value, timing is also very important. In a nutshell, staffing which floats junior talent where a greater number of candidates find placement - let's say for a company, Ominous - means that all strategic work has been completed. If specific talent is needed, and only a few, this suggests extensions are being explored or executed - new media, new tools, new markets, new IT = channel development.

The problem is, the companies benefitting from this data mining, as Aquent is owned by RHI, Robert Half International, which owns a few staffing and talent firms abroad and in the U.S. - abroad fro it's aboard, outside England - being a British firm, are the companies in England, moreover, companies competing with U.S. firms.

I'm not a protectionist. In fact I like competition.

I think it's healthy for us.

What I am is a person who does not like, and can not appreciate the relationship between Aquent and the AIGA. In fact I question what the A.I.G.A is. I find the services of teh A.I.G.A. - aside from the tax relief it secured for graphic designers - are far lower in quality than the value it proposes. I do not see it as a vested partner in american graphic design. I could get into this topic so easily, and welcome any comments. For an entity supporting professionals in business support services it's lacking acknowledgment of how marketing works, the value iof design and a designer in marketing, and the wide and very deep education needed for young designers on what design is, for an entity which hosts coffee sessions essentially where you can "network" and talk about "things" is certainly not an entity providing calibration for any degree of excellence in design.

Particularly for a market as viable as the american economy where - well beyond any other example - has every need for communication, and its distinct forms and tools.

Can you imagine a method, a workshop, literature - or simply examples on the A.I.G.A site displaying how to communicate across any language.

Most american are embarrassed, particularly those who work in this profession and have fewer than 2 languages under their belt.

The need to communicate inputs on a project as a large, as involved as one where their are five world markets is not an uncommon event in graphic design. What is uncommon is having access to counterparts as american firms are turning to talent which has a broader perspective than english to english american to american, caucasian, hispanic, black, asian, etc etc of a 5th generation.

What remains is to see is how well or poorly the Republicans here in the U.S. handle the coming news and corporate or national scandals. They've traditionally supported the Tory's and are vested in each other's interest - sticking together.

The attorney on record fro the A.I.G.A, Mr. Frank Martinez warned me six years ago to stay off the internet.

What a horrible mistake not to take his advice seriously, what a terrible waste of time dealing with Aquent, now Vitamin T after a brief change to Vitamin C as they recruit their cover - american talent scouts picking up the pieces.

I have a friend in Singapore doing, perhaps, perhaps not, the same thing. Using an undeveloped legal structure in a foreign country to mine information for a Swiss firm, Kelly Services, another talent/staffing agency.

I certainly hope he doesn't end up in prison for breaking the law - unknowingly. But if he has and knew of it, I'm sure he'll agree, would deserve it.

BTW, the current topic in the news with multination U.S. firms having, asking for, getting a tax break, the holiday tax break is on the same issue. Do you hurt the peoples of a country as you make profits off their labor. Who is repsonsible for these people. Is it business' role to develop a country, as, if caught, having focused on profits, as the U.S. government provides aid and support, suggesting an " I can, really mister, I can do better" apology.

How would you accept a "token" gesture as MSN and Google have offered,  suggesting "investing", towards country's job development -  for not having done more to secure the economy when the moment was present?  

And at the price of having taken jobs away from americans who, employed or not, always support other peoples and their economies.

Really, mister, you have to be kidding with that suggestion.