A new Nielsen report: The New Digital American Family: Understanding family dynamics, media and purchasing behavior trends is out. Very interesting, via Dick Stroud and  What is happening to American households?:

The family household is becoming less homogeneous, less educated and less affluent target audience.By the mid-2030s, the share of households with children is expected to decline further to between 25-30%. The family household is not going to look like it does today due to the ferocious projected growth of multi-cultural households.

Nielsen projections suggest that the majority of families with children will be multi-cultural before the end of this decade. Fewer than half will be native-born, non-Hispanic white. Families with children already register more than 40% multi-cultural. The proportion is even higher at 47% among those families with a head of household age 33 or younger and soars to 61% for the lowest income families.

This is important to me because people who are less homogeneous, less educated, less affluent, and less likely to use English at home will probably further continue to use the Internet as their lingua franca rather than a shared, educated English literacy.

No judgement here, actually, because I come from Hawaii and our linqua franca is Pidgin English, a patois of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipino, and others into a shared tongue.

What I care about it how best to engage with this new community and how they communicate, how they engage, in what language, at what Flesch Reading Ease rating (and is the scale even relevant any more?), and also what will eventually matter to this less educated, less affluent, multi-culti online community?

Do you have any insight into this?  Do you have a plan?

Via Marketing Conversation

1 a : a course of action : MANEUVER b : a diplomatic or political initiative or maneuver
2 : a petition or protest presented through diplomatic channels

Main Entry: dé·marche
Variant(s): or de·marche /dA-’märsh, di-’, ‘dA-”/
Function: noun
Etymology: French démarche, literally, gait, from Middle French, from demarcher to march, from Old French demarchier, from de- + marchier to march
Date: 1658

The best thing about my life is that I am the least awesome and noteworthy of all of my friends.  Here is by buddy Oliver Uberti at the recent TEDxNASA doing a design and art presentation called “Smash The Design Button” — he’s a designer and artist for the National Geographic Magazine — enjoy!

From the video’s description:

The design process begins and ends with research — so he shares an office with a human skeleton. Oliver Uberti is a visual journalist and designer who dabbles in maps, infographics and words. He is a Design Editor at National Geographic magazine.

On a given day at Geographic, Uberti says he may be found painting with crude oil, charting man’s migration from Africa, drawing Stonehenge, counting jelly beans or directing a photo shoot of highway litter. He’s drawn to images that make him feel something — joy, sorrow, surprise or wonder.

Uberti writes a blog titled The Process, the stories behind National Geographic’s award- winning art, maps and designs. Here he answers the oft-asked question “How did they do that?”

About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Today was my first time through TSA NudeVision scanner technology. All I can say is that I blame shrinkage.

Here’s my latest post over at the Rosetta Stone blog, Language Journeys, Finding the Native Accent:

Perhaps you’re like many Americans who get so bummed out when they spend a lot of time learning a second language, and then they go abroad, excited to use their new language, and foreigners look at them perplexed. In all likelihood, the people you’re talking to simply can’t follow your rather inaccurate accent. Maybe this is confusing because you did so well in your French/Spanish/German high school and/or college courses.

Aha! Generally, few primary and secondary schools hire native speakers. So, the German that you may have learned from your Alabama- or Massachusetts-born-and-bred German teacher is aurally incomprehensible to Germans.

Accents can also vary greatly within a country, which is why they are often standardized in media outlets. The national news broadcast in the United States, for example, is standardized to a neutral accent, referred to as General American. In England, it’s called Received Pronunciation or the Queen’s English, and it’s what you hear on the BBC. In Germany, this neutral pronunciation is called Standard German, Hochdeutsch, or High German. Many countries, like Germany, Austria, and Switzerland not only have different accents from country to country but different dialects as well.

One of the most valuable things about TOTALe is that it offers the voices of native speakers only. So, when I’m going through my lessons, I only hear people who are native German speakers. When I log on to TOTALe for my live coaching, I get a native German speaker, and when the magic voice-recognition software asks me to pronounce German words and phrases into my headset, it is mapping my voice to a model of native speakers’ pronunciation. The speech-recognition engine is checking to see whether I’m speaking accurate German or if I’m getting lazy.

So, if and when Germans look at you perplexed or correct your pronunciation, they’re not trying to be rude or insult your speaking abilities, they’re trying to be helpful—learn from them. Most Germans really appreciate foreigners, especially Americans who are learning their native language.

The Rosetta Stone Language Journeys blog just posted my latest article entitled Third Time’s a Charm:

In the middle of my German language learning travails, Rosetta Stone reached out to me and asked me to blog about my language-learning process in light of being able to try out their new solution, Rosetta Stone TOTALe. So, here I am.

What have I learned in the last couple months using TOTALe?  Well, I have learned quite a bit and it is working.  Seriously.  And I’ll tell you why.

I actually got to meet Duane Sider, Director of Learning at Rosetta Stone, and he pointed out something that now seems so obvious, which is that people don’t learn languages based on charts, irregular verbs, vocab cards, rote memorization.  I didn’t learn English that way when I was a child and Mark didn’t learn German that way either — we learn languages by learning like children, learning phonetically and over time, which phrase works best in which situation.

I guess in the past, what I had been doing is learning what each English word means in German and what each German word means in English. Then I would try to piece each sentence together based on subject, verb, object noun agreement, like a puzzle, that at the end of the day, would convey meaning and secure me a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.

Here’s the hard truth: you can’t really have a conversation with someone if you’re trying to do real-time translation based on coming up with a sentence such as, “I would like a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk” and then try to sort out that German equivalent, while still trying to be charming at the grocery store.  What you need to be able to do is see bread and milk and automatically think “Brot” and “Milch”. And when you would like something, you had better be nice and say “ich möchte Brot und Milch, bitter.”

This Rosetta Stone Language Journeys blog post, Learning German – Round 2, is a continuation of a previous post, part one, Failing with Language Classes, and deals with my General tendency to dance around learning something hard by obsessing about it, learning about it, and buying lots and lots of books and texts and stories and dictionaries instead of actually becoming a true bouncing baby German-speaker — collecting German instead of learning German:

I arrived in Berlin, terrified of sounding like a toddler and a moron while trying to speak German.  So, I just didn’t — I spoke English.  After a while in Berlin, I signed up for another language course, again starting at the beginning. This time it was serious: three hours a day, five days a week, for four months.

I was pretty religious with attendance and the course was completely immersive based on necessity, not just as a learning strategy — English was not the lingua franca of this school.  I had classmates who were from Iran, Yemen, Turkey, China, Italy, Spain, Russia, and Brazil.

Again, my story was a sob story. The moment I left class, I didn’t prioritize the hours of homework, the mandated flash cards, the rote memorization of verb conjugations and noun gender — I had a business to run and I had a social life — with Berliners who were happy to practice their flawless English.

Eventually, I realized I had been fetishing German learning more than I have been trying to learn German.  After three years of German language grazing, I have half-a-dozen German-English dictionaries, another four packs of German vocabulary flash cards, and an assortment of German workbooks, verb books, grammar books and the whole lot.  It was almost like I got confused — I was collecting German instead of learning German — like buying classical CDs instead of learning how to play the viola.

Score.  I am digging through the Goethe.de site for an SMNR I am putting together for the Goethe-Institut Washington for a blogger outreach we’re to be doing in support of what we’ve been doing for their Facebook page and their Twitter profile — thanks Rodrigo!  Well, there are so many gems secreted on the greater Goethe site and here’s one of them to check out.  I am currently level A2 at Goethe-Institut Berlin, nearing the end of an Intensiv-8 class, and these are some awesome resources with which to practice and study online for free…

Practise German at your own level. The easiest exercises are at levels A1–A2. All exercises are classified according to the Common European Reference Framework for Languages.

Test your German

Which is the right course level for you?

Goethe-Zertifiakt A1: Start Deutsch 1
Online Modellsatz

Test yourself and prepare for this exam online.

Goethe-Zertifikat A2: Start Deutsch 2
Online Modellsatz

Test yourself and prepare for this exam online.

Radio language Course “Radio D”

Learning German for beginners on two levels: In all episodes the reporters Paula and Philipp experience exciting stories.

Mediterrania

Listen to a story, play a game, sort pictures and text

Schellingstraße

The inhabitants of this house in Munich let you glimpse into their daily lives. Authentic material for beginners of German including audio and video.

Read interesting texts for learners of German or watch short, up-to-date video clips on German culture.

“Deutsch-Wagen-Tour”

The “Deutsch-Wagen” are on tour through Poland, arousing people’s interest in learning German with creative games, quiz games and competitions.

Podcast: “Greetings from Germany”

Language lessons of another kind: 60 amusing audio stories about Germany for students of German.

Radio language Course “Radio D”

Learning German for beginners on two levels: In all episodes the reporters Paula and Philipp experience exciting stories.

“100 and Me”

Tell your personal story, captured on video, based on one of 100 German words.

German contemporary literature in Spanish

Get to know today’s generation of German writers. With information for booksellers and librarians, videos and interactive exercises.

Line E

The interactive on-line quiz focussing on the European languages!

Deutsche Spuren in Schweden

Join us and track German traces in Sweden.

The City of Languages

Play an exciting online-quiz about languages and scripts of the world.

Learn German with jetzt.de

Young people learn German with authentic texts from “jetzt.de”

KuBus – Cultural Videos from Germany

A collection of video contributions on cultural and societal life in Germany.

A-Level German website

Discover useful German weblinks and join the Deutsch-Klub!

Ausgewanderte Wörter

24 words of German origin which “emigrated” and found a home in other languages

Ballgeschichten

Stories and anecdotes about your favourite ball. Do you have a favourite ball? Are you creative? Send us photo and story about your favourite ball!

Make friends,
have fun with German

Podcasts with Mexicans in Germany and multi-cultural German classes in North America

Memo-Spiel

Wussten Sie, dass viele Wörter des täglichen Umgangs aus dem Deutschen stammen? Gehen Sie auf Entdeckungsreise!

Schellingstraße

The inhabitants of this house in Munich let you glimpse into their daily lives. Authentic material for beginners of German including audio and video.

Filou

German-French magazine for children between 8 and 12

[Goethe-Institut Nancy]

Bridging the World

German language bridges the world. Experiences and impressions – Be part of it!

[Goethe-Institut Australia]

Make online contact with other learners of German.

German Language Get-Together

Meet nice German students and native-language tutors. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 7–8 a.m. (CET) and Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, 8–9 p.m. (CET) at the Cafe on the Goethe Island.

Online Chat ‘JETZT Deutsch lernen’

At specific times you will find native German speakers and guests online

Forum “Deutsch lernen mit jetzt.de”

Exchange ideas with other students, find email-partners or just “talk” with other people.

The Image of the Other

International email project for young beginners

[Goethe-Institut Krakau]

Mediterrania

A journey of discovery around the world: Email and other online exercises for primary school students

Odyssee

Intercultural e-mail game

I got confused last night about “wer” and “wen” but then stumbled upon this! Ah! They both mean who — but wer is subject, “who” and “wen” is the accusative or dative — sort of like “whom” or “to whom” or “for whom.” Very cool. Now I need to sort out Wem and Wessen! Any insight?

I think this is from English Grammar for Students of German

I am here in Berlin.  All of my German friends and most of my Expat friends speak German — except me.  So, I am doubling down by using Rosetta Stone‘s TOTALe product to really get me past all of my “language shyness.”

I tried Rosetta Stone’s online version (no longer available) of their CD-based German language program but I didn’t give it nearly the time and attention — immersion time — that I should have. You get out what you give in and, before, I would try to shoehorn a little time here and there.  The immersion method of learning a new language needs to be as complete as possible — not passive learning, which is what I had been doing, but a lot more active.

Now, I am spending lots and lots of time on the program.  In addition to the main program, called Rosetta Course — the stuff you get on the CD — there are live native language teaching coaches — via Rosetta Studio — you can schedule time with as well as many opportunities to interact and communicate with other students who are online and studying your language — in my case, German — through this thing called Rosetta World.

While I have spent a lot of time on the Rosetta Course, I have yet to do my first Studio appointment, on the 26th, and I have not explored World much — but I look forward to it.   What have I learned so far?  Well, like flying or SCUBA diving, language-learning rewards hours in the air or under-water.  I really want to and need to spend an hour or so/day, every day.

The good thing is that there are a team of folks, called the TOTALe Success team, who call, email, and even tweet me to make sure I keep focused, which is something I do surely need.

Introducing Rosetta Stone TOTALe^™

Our ultimate language-learning solution.

With access to TOTALe, you’ll learn, practice and play your way to a new language. It’s the easiest, fastest and most enjoyable way to learn—and it’s online.

• Learn naturally and speak immediately with our award-winning Dynamic Immersion^® method.
• Practice conversation with live native-speaking Studio Coaches.
• Connect and play with fellow learners, including native speakers of your new language.
• Get live guidance and support from our dedicated Customer Success Team.

TOTALe combines our revolutionary learning program and live interaction to deliver the world’s ultimate, online language-learning program.

Rosetta Course — Learn to speak, read, listen and write in our award-winning program.

Rosetta Studio — Practice in our live online sessions with a native-speaking Studio Coach.

Rosetta World — While I have been using their online version of the software on and off for a year, paid out of my own pocket, Rosetta Stone recently asked me to blog about my language-learning, German language-learning, and Rosetta Stone TOTALe experience — not on this blog but on a blog they’re putting together. Therefore, I thought I would disclose that since I am accessing TOTALe for free and getting some compensation as a writer.

Play games and practice speaking with other learners and native speakers in our online community.

While I have been using their online version of the software on and off for a year, paid out of my own pocket, Rosetta Stone recently asked me to blog about my language-learning, German language-learning, and Rosetta Stone TOTALe experience — not on this blog but on a blog they’re putting together. Therefore, I thought I would disclose that since I am accessing TOTALe for free and getting some compensation as a writer.

I am the proud owner of MemeticEngineer.com — I have owned it forever!  Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what memetic engineering is — I also own memes.org — I love the concept and theory around memetics!

Memetic Engineer on Disinfo

Coined by zoologist Richard Dawkins in his controversial book The Selfish GeneK (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), the ‘meme’ is the study of ideas, behaviours, and skills which replicate and transmit themselves via imitation (using the human mind similarly to the way that a virus does in a biological host).

Memes are ‘replicators’ that compete to get themselves copied into as many minds as possible. Dawkins’ original examples included catchphrases, clothes fashions, and new ways of building arches. By implication, the mind can be fashioned, manipulated, and controlled just as the physical body is by genes.

Important early scientific studies were conducted by Daniel C. Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter (particularly columns for the prestigious Scientific American magazine) in the early 1980s. Hofstadter’s Metamagical Themas (New York: Basic Books, 1983) explored memetics from the perspective of abstract mathematics and linguistics. A climate of viral metaphors (Ebola, AIDS) and a rapidly growing hedonistic cyberculture (influenced by evolutionary psychology) helped popularise the memetics field in the 1990s.

Memetics met with academic opposition from socio-biologists including Edward O. Wilson, and Dawkins himself expressed concern about memetics becoming an empirical science of culture. Dennett and others developed slightly different interpretations of memes from Dawkins, and the academic world has consequently been slow to adopt the new science.

Memetic Engineering developed from diverse influences, including cutting edge physics of consciousness and memetics research, chaos theory, semiotics, culture jamming, military information warfare, and the viral texts of iconoclasts William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, and Genesis P-Orridge. It draws upon Third Culture sciences and conceptual worldviews for Social Engineering, Values Systems Alignment, and Culture Jamming purposes. An important example of macro-historical memetic engineering analysis explaining how domination, patriarchy, war and violence are culturally programmed is Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1988), which outlines her very important Dominator and Partnership Culture thesis.

The savvy memetic engineer is able to isolate, study, and subtly manipulate the underlying values systems, symbolic balance and primal atavisms that unconsciously influence the individual psyche and collective identity. A highly educated but susceptible intelligentsia, worldwide travel, and information vectors like the Internet, cable television, and tabloid media, means that hysterical epidemics and disinformation campaigns may become more common. This warfare will be conducted using aesthetics, symbols, and doctrines as camouflage that will ultimately influence our cultural meme pool. These contemporary Life Conditions (Historic Times; Geographic Place; Existential Problems; and Societal Circumstances) are explored in books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), John Brockman’s The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudo-science, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (New York: W.H. Freeman & Co, 1996).

Fictional descriptions of memetic engineering include Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation Trilogy (New York: Bantam Books, 1991), George Gurdjieff’s difficult but ultimately very rewarding artificial mythology Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (New York: Penguin USA, 1999); Neil Stephenson’s awesome novels Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1993) and The Diamond Age (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1996); and Robert W. Chambers’ unearthly The King in Yellow (Buccaneer Books, 1996) tome, which influenced seminal horror author H.P. Lovecraft.

Memetic Engineering on Wikipedia

Memetic engineering is a term developed and coined by Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed the behavior of people after being purposely exposed (knowingly and unknowingly) to certain memetic themes. The term is based on Richard Dawkins‘ theory of memes.

• The process of developing memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others in society or humanity.
• The process of creating and developing theories or ideologies based on an analytical study of societies, cultures, their ways of thinking and the evolution of their minds.
• The process of modifying human beliefs, thought patterns, etc.

Memetic Engineering via Wired

What if culture – even consciousness itself – were nothing more than an artifact of the interaction of selfish memes, ideas capable of replicating and co-evolving with supreme indifference to their impact on human hosts?

A meme-centered paradigm of human culture and consciousness is, to say the least, disconcerting. In Consciousness Explained, cognitive theorist Daniel Dennett captures the horror graphically:

I don’t know about you, but I’m not initially attracted by the idea of my brain as a sort of dung heap in which the larvae of other people’s ideas renew themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational Diaspora. It does seem to rob my mind of its importance as both author and critic. Who’s in charge, according to this vision – we or our memes?

A meme-focused vision of culture and consciousness acknowledges forthrightly that memes are not mere random effluvia of the human experience but powerful control mechanisms that impose a largely invisible deep structure on a wide range of complex phenomena – language, scientific thinking, political behavior, productive work, religion, philosophical discourse, even history itself.

But consider the matter more closely. What if it were possible to construct a new science of the meme – memetic engineering – analogous to the discipline of genetic engineering? Such a science would allow us to manipulate complex patterns of replicating memes and achieve consistent and predictable manifestations in the form of a precisely altered cultural phenotype. Who would then be in charge of the course of cultural evolution, our selves or our selfish memes?

This may sound like science fiction, but a possible precursor to memetic engineering has already been studied at the Santa Fe Institute. The 2050 Project – an effort jointly pursued by SFI and the World Resources Institute – used a computer modeling tool called Sugarscape to construct a “cartoon history” that mimics the true history of ancient Native American tribes, such as the Anasazi, and then assesses the impact of changes in various cultural inputs – availability of resources, migration patterns, altered assumptions concerning diffusion of cultural mores – on alternate histories that might have transpired but were foreclosed by intervening events in real history.

The objectives of this research, breathtaking in their implications, were described by the investigators in Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up, a project monograph:

The broad aim of this research is to begin the development of a more unified social science, one that embeds evolutionary processes in a computational environment that simulates demographics, the transmission of culture, conflict, economics, disease, the emergence of groups, and co-adaptation with the environment, all from the bottom up.

Research initiatives like the 2050 Project hold out the prospect of such a new kind of social science, as well as the possibility of a new science of memetic engineering. While predictions about the pace of scientific innovation are notoriously risky, my guess is that by the beginning of the 21st century the embryonic field of computer-based memetic studies either will reveal itself as an intellectual dry hole or will prove to be a technology of extraordinary power.

If the second scenario comes to pass, what are the long-term implications for our self-image as a species – endowed as we are with at least the illusion of free will and blessed, perhaps uniquely among the creatures of this earth, with the baffling gift of conscious thought?

First the dark scenario. Memes might come to be viewed explicitly as the primary actors in the drama of human history, exerting an iron-fisted control precisely analogous to that of Richard Dawkins’s “selfish genes” in the pageant of biological evolution.

This is the disquieting vision that Daniel Dennett proffered – the human mind as a mere meat computer, conscious human beings as puppets dancing to the blind watchmaker’s hidden melodies. But is this a fair reading of the philosophical implications of memes? Perhaps not. If we consider the matter carefully, we can glimpse a subtler message lurking between the lines of this emerging discipline. It is the same message implicit in the new science of evolutionary psychology, articulated by Robert Wright in The Moral Animal:

Understanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step toward understanding that we’re all puppets, and our best hope for even partial liberation is to try to decipher the logic of the puppeteer.

So too in the realm of human culture, our best hope for eventual liberation from an endless succession of dangerous ideologies and blinding prejudices – our best chance for overthrowing the tyranny exercised by blindly replicating memes indifferent to their often devastating impact on the mortal vessels they selfishly commandeer – may lie in a 21st-century enlightenment centered, at least in part, on a rigorous new science of the meme.

As you know, I have been struggling with learning German for years now. While I am working slow and steady, one of the things I really enjoy is listening to the Goethe-Institut and Deutsche Welle‘s “learning German” series of podcasts — four series — that take German language neophytes from nothing to B1 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages — Deutsch Warum Nicht? German Why Not? You can listen to it online or you can download it as a podcast via RSS or iTunes.

And, it is fun, too — it is basically storytelling, about the life of student cum journalist cum porter, Andreas, and his invisible elf girlfriend, Ex, and all the characters at the Hotel Europa in Aachen, Germany.

For the gym, I loaded all four seasons onto my Apple iPod Shuffle and listen, listen, and listen… it is a rare example of a series that one actually can listen to again and again because each time I listen to the series, I have better and better comprehension.  I highly recommend it!

Deutsch – Warum nicht?

The course Deutsch – warum nicht?, divided into four parts, tells the story of the journalism student Andreas and his invisible ex. Join the two of them on an adventure and learn German along the way! Each of the four series contains 26 lessons with dialogues, exercises and audios to download. The course covers levels A1 to B1 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages and is geared toward beginners and advanced learners. Deutsch – warum nicht? was produced by Deutsche Welle and the Goethe Institute.

Deutsch – warum nicht? Series 1

Andreas works at the Hotel Europa in Aachen in order to finance his journalism studies. Things begin to get exciting when a famous musician disappears from Room 10. Important grammar points: verb conjugation, pronouns, simple questions, accusative case.

Deutsch – warum nicht? Series 2

Andreas has a lot to do. He has to take care of the guests in the hotel, find a room for his parents and conduct an interview with Charlemagne. Besides, his parents are going to find out who ex is and where he met her. Important grammar points: modal verbs, perfect tense, dative case.

Deutsch – warum nicht? Series 3

Andreas is still working in Aachen, but Dr. Thürmann has found a new job for the future journalist. A larger and more exciting city awaits him: Berlin. Important grammar points: imperfect tense, dependent clauses, declination of adjectives.

Deutsch – warum nicht? Series 4

Andreas has completed his studies and is now ready to research his first article. His work takes him (and, of course, his mysterious ex) to former East Germany. Important grammar points: passive, dependent clauses, reflexive verbs, subjunctive.

From advertisements for a Portuguese independent film group, several ideas and their enemies. (Via heavy backpack and Kottke)

I have been learning German against my natural proclivity and German-language podcasts and German course podcasts have been really and truly helpful in addition to my weekly class at Goethe-Institut in Washington, DC.  Since I have found so much success — especially with Deutsch – Warum nicht? — I wanted to share my list with you:

Deutsch – Warum nicht? – The course Deutsch – warum nicht?, divided into four parts, tells the story of the journalism student Andreas and his invisible ex. Join the two of them on an adventure and learn German along the way! Each of the four series contains 26 lessons with dialogue, exercises and audios to download. The course covers levels A1 to B1 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages and is geared toward beginners and advanced learners. Deutsch – warum nicht? was produced by Deutsche Welle and the Goethe Institute.

MyGermanClass.com video podcast Podcasts – Explore the MyGermanClass Video Podcasts, with creator Clark Shah-Nelson

Learn to speak German with this Free Podcast – Learn to speak German, to read German and to understand German with this free Podcast from Germany and Switzerland.

Goethe-Institut Podcasts – Every few weeks, a new edition of the Goethe-Institut podcast introduces highlights and background information on the music programme of the Goethe-Institutes worldwide. Each edition of this podcast is available free-of-charge and works just like a short radio show. The podcast is also available on subscription and has been optimised for flexible enjoyment on your personal mobile device (e.g. mp3 player).

Slowly spoken news reports – Every day, you can find the newscast from Deutsche Welle’s German Service here – slowly read and clearly articulated just for German learners.

Sprachbar – “Sprachbar” is an offering that introduces you to the subtleties and secrets of the German language.

Top-Thema mit Vokabeln – Catch up on news and learn German at the same time. DW-WORLD.DE offers you up-to-date reports that are easy to understand. The reports are supplemented with vocabulary lists.

Alltagsdeutsch – This podcast features fun and quirky radio reports about life in Germany. The audio files are complemented by manuscripts.

Stichwort – Stichwort is an entertaining program about the latest buzzwords in German.

MyDailyPhrase German – Learn German step by step, day by day, phrase by phrase. In today’s show you’ll learn to say it’s been nice to meet someone.

Geld – Liebe – Hass – Follow the nail-biting trials and tribulations of the family Feinberg, as they help you learn German!

Perspektiven – Perspektiven with Minka and Markus is geared towards first semester college-level German learners looking for a fun and exciting way to practice their German. Learn German through Minka and Markus’ various discussions, interviews and entertaining conversations without the textbook format traditionally used in class!

Das treffende Wort – Join Käthe and Manfred for informal lessons on the German language and culture! This show is geared for intermediate learners of German.

Alles Österreich – Join Anton “ze Austrian”–alias Anton der Österreicher–as he explores Austrian culture, politics, history, and society.

Andere Länder — Anderes Deutsch – This podcast uses unique situations and dialogue to introduce advanced students of German to the Swiss and Austrian national varieties of the German language. Drop in and listen as Birgit from Hannover and Gregor from Graz encounter the distinct standard German varieties of Austria and Switzerland!

Slow German – Brush up your German with Annik!

With all the busyness and business here at Abraham Harrison LLC, I have not stopped, breathed, and shared something that I find to be really cool: we’re doing digital PR and blogger outreach in several foreign languages on behalf of our clients!

Currently, we’re doing a blogger outreach and social media campaign on behalf of OLX in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. In July, we’ll be adding Russian into the mix; in August, we’ll be adding Polish. Last year, we did a crisis management and online reputation defense campaign for a financial services client in German and French as well, in addition to English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

We really enjoy doing these these multinational, multilingual, and multicultural campaigns because we have staff all over the world, in seven countries on four continents. Our CEO, Mark Harrison, is a polyglot, with German his co-fluent language – he is in Berlin, our European base – additionally, he speaks Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Swahili.

While there most surely are quite a few cultural differences (call or email us for many funny examples), the Internet community has an over-arching global protocol, which I argue is simply “being human”: one needs to listen, be responsive, engage on a human level, and always assume good intent — especially when it comes to earned media blogger campaigns. This works worldwide.

Logistically, the most important hire for our foreign language campaigns is the native-speaker project lead in each language, especially in the languages that you and your polyglot CEO can’t read. Just because you can read, write, and/or speak fluent [insert language here] it doesn’t mean you think like [insert nationality here]. The cultural knowledge, and the “nativeness” of the (written) voice are very import to getting the communications across most effectively.

It is essential to work directly with a native-speaker who is well in touch with his/her native culture. When doing communications work internationally, how you say something is as important as what you say.

Also, technologically, it is essential to make certain you have your email solution set up to support 8-bit character sets and that you have tested and re-tested because having Cyrillic or Kanji arrive corrupted or poorly-rendered is unacceptable.

Test, retest, consult an expert. When it comes to reducing accented and special-character Roman characters to ASCII, Internet denizens are sort of used to it, be it turning the German “ß” (ess-zett) to “ss” or realizing that much of the world doesn’t use our quotes but often uses <<>> or ‘ ‘.

Additionally, numbers are rendered differently in different languages, such as “€10,00″ instead of “€10.00″ and the like. These are the gaffs that make you seem like you don’t know what you’re doing – and as if you are not taking the time to respect the reader.

At the end of the day, don’t let these details prevent you from giving it a go. The big secret is that there is a vibrant blogosphere, Twittersphere, and forumsphere everywhere now, no matter what anyone says or thinks they know.

Since I recently spent a year in Berlin, I know that I have heard this a hundred times, “what you’re doing in the US with bloggers is very cool, but in Germany there are very few bloggers and they’re all friends and they’re very cliquey and it would never work here,” which is, strangely enough, what everyone I have spoken to says about their country’s bloggers, including the United Kingdom, which is patently untrue. Every new country we begin interacting with we discover has a whole world of bloggers, etc. outside these supposed monolithic A-list cliques. It’s just that no one seems to be making the effort to check if the consensus reality is the truth, or is actually the Emperor’s new clothes.

We’re having a lot of fun on these campaigns and expect to begin new campaigns in German and French as well in the short-term as well.

If you would like more information on what we do or if you would like to set up a call, please email me at chris.abraham@chrisabraham.com or call our main line, +1 202-657-4769 and we’d be happy to help.

(Via Marketing Conversation)

Image via Wikipedia

Another sweet missive from our globe-trotting Golden Child, Miss Kate Turner. Kate is on her way back soon, from an extended stay in India. In both the palacial homes of friends from Washington, as well as in a Yoga Ashram as an acolyte Yogini. To follow is her latest email to the posse list.

Subject: dear friends – un petit mot de news
Date: 05 Sep 2002 05:51:52 -0400

 

hello there,

if i write in French it’s because i’ve met a fantastic french woman here at the ashram. enjoying speaking in french together because she is quite exhausted with english all day – those who’ve tried to get along in a foreign country w/o knowing the language will understand well!

never seen rain like this – incroyable. begin to get cabin fever, but then having satsang (an evening session of Hindi chants in a yoga hall) is magical with the rain pounding outside.

one of msot important lessons of this trip for me: c’est d’etre tres dure. to be tough – India will give so much to you but you must watch your back! iv’e already come close to being food for 3 parasites. i can explain later. hard to imagine the buying power that any westerner represents to these people. i keep thinking actually…this is such good preparation for the Hill!!

i cherish your quick messages – it’s good to knwo what’s happening at home. thank you. you set a place for me at brunch! i am smiling.

i’m so very happy here, but will be ready to come home. lots lots to talk about over a few Tunicliffes and Indian dinners at my new apartment. i will cook for you all – in a sari!

 

love,
Kate

Cover of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

A Virtual Community I belong to recommended a book called Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny. Its a very life-changing book for this man as I have been convinced in a lot of ways as to the inherently Mercenary nature of life, believing collaboration to be essentially selfish.

Nonzero refers to game theory and its two states of gaming outcomes: Zero Sum and Non Zero Sum games. Zero sum games are essentially games of competition wherein only one claims victory; non zero sum games are in fact collaborative with all players winning through success while all players may lose through failure. The zero sum game spreads the risk and also the win or loss over a great number of players, essentially improving the odds of survival. Through this lens, Robert Wright analyzes our entire human history. We are in fact hive dwellers rather than lone wolves.

“Robert Wright’s previous book, The Moral Animal, presented a highly readable overview of evolutionary psychology, the controversial attempt to apply the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. In Nonzero, Wright attempts something far more ambitious: he extends the evolutionary story both backward and forward in time, arguing that human cultural evolution can be understood as an outgrowth of biological evolution, and that it should eventually lead humankind to higher levels of cooperation on a planetary scale. If this sounds like a tall order, it is–but Wright does an astonishingly effective job of finding directionality in history, not just over the past thousand years, but over the almost four billion years since the beginning of life on earth…Wright has written an extra-ordinarily insightful and thought-provoking book. The idea that there is directionality and purpose to history is one that has come and gone, and now may be coming again thanks to the elegant synthesis he has produced.”

This redefines the entire concept of Darwinism and evolution from being “kill or be killed” and “only the fittest survive” into less an exclusively genetic imperative and more of a cultural memetic survival.

Protecting the genes of people is irrelevant if one is unable to sustain or grow or process one’s culture. Very cool stuff for this memeticist.