International -- Readers Report
English: The De Facto Lingua Franca
"The great English divide" (The Workplace, Aug. 13) slighted Flanders. In multilingual Northern Belgium, even children selling tickets for school sports teams can give their spiel in English.
But Europeans' fluency in English doesn't guarantee full comprehension. I frequently translate advertising copy from Dutch to English for Belgian ad agencies, and I can find myself totally lost at times, especially when dealing with humor. What's hilarious in Dutch often isn't funny in English, and vice versa. Languages are more than words: They also contain cultural and attitude variations that can be quite important. So learning the local language is valuable, sometimes essential. Here in Ekeren, the American headmaster and many of his native English-speaking staff at the Antwerp International School take Dutch on their own time. Goed idee, niet waar?
Taylor Chambers
Ekeren, Belgium
Your article on the growth of English in the workplace focused on the advantages to employees of speaking English. There are enormous advantages to employers, too. Speaking one language improves the time to market and boosts competitiveness. In today's rapidly changing workplace, companies that can retrain and reskill staff quickly (and in one language) have an edge. The shortage of teachers is indeed a problem. The scarcity of good teachers in Europe is even more worrying--but not surprising in a profession where an experienced teacher may be earning less than $20,000, even in a high-wage economy such as Germany.
Simon Thompson
Linguarama International
Warsaw
There is only one proper English: American English. Europeans, who spend vacations at their own overcrowded resorts, would do better to take vacations in the U.S. and learn perfectly accented English.
Frank J. Bartos
Brno, Czech Republic
Not So Fast on Those Brand Values
I question the validity of assessing the brand value on the basis of one-year earnings only ("The best global brands," Special Report, Aug. 6). Any business has its ups and downs through the passage of economic cycles, or for some specific reasons (such as the impact of the tech slump on IBM and Microsoft Corp.). The valuation approach must consider a period of three to five years. In addition, adjustments for nonrecurring items need to be made.
As this is the first ranking of the world's most valuable brands in BusinessWeek, a consistent and transparent approach in the valuation process needs to be followed in order to uphold its relevance and credibility.
Benny Kwok
Hong Kong
Your list of the best global brands is biased toward the U.S. I could not find Michelin--but I did find Barbie. Go back to the drawing board.
Daniel Jouve
Paris
Your Global Brand Survey is very welcome. I have already used it to great effect in my postgraduate brand-management classes. There is, however, an inconsistency that I have always thought was a weakness in the Interbrand approach. Interbrand has consistently avoided using consumer perception studies in its method, because it considers them to be "soft." The local Interbrand representative in South Africa once said in print that to include so-called soft measures would attract "howls of derision from the financial world." And Michael Birkin, one of the originators of the Interbrand method, said that the consumer-driven approach to brand equity measurement is "simply not realistic."
According to your Editor's Memo, you avoided the "vagaries of consumer perception surveys, which can change on a whim." You then say that brands that survived the last downturn did so by not cutting their marketing budgets and keeping their profiles high. The largest portion of the marketing budget, typically, is spent on communications designed to modify or reinforce consumer perceptions. This is because such perceptions and attitudes are what keep the best brands on top.
Roger Sinclair
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg
George W. Bush: A President and a Puzzle
How is President Bush able to continue "Riding high on the Hill"? (American News, Aug. 20-27). He promotes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and makes a mockery of the word "refuge." He is gung ho on spending billions toward a missile defense that, if successful, would prompt our enemies to find other ways of piercing Fortress America. As for research involving embryonic stem cells, it has his approval with restrictions that may well delay the discovery of means to deal effectively with certain diseases and injuries. I see things differently from my part of the world, and I remain puzzled by the assertion that he has "silenced the skeptics."
Michael Driver
Ichihara City, Japan
Mexico Can't Let This Chance Slip By
"Is the magic fading?" (Latin America, Aug. 6) comes out at a time when many of us, both government officials and private individuals, are working to convince President Vicente Fox's government that Mexico should find its place in the world, not only for the sake of jobs but as a nation contributing to human knowledge and advancement.
The cheap part of the maquiladora sector is fading away, and this should be viewed as an opportunity. As president of the services section of the Mexican Association of Information Technology Industries, I can tell you that GMatrix and Roberto Solis are not alone in the quest to convert Mexico into a software powerhouse. For two years we've been working with several government branches at the federal and state levels, and we see programs already coming into place, especially from Bancomext, our export-import bank. We are hopeful that we'll be heard and that from our recommendations other very necessary programs will soon follow.
This is the golden opportunity to develop and expand our relatively small national software development industry. If we can work cohesively as a country, in five years we'll be recognized as a country of choice for software development. If not, we'll lose this opportunity forever to countries like India. We'll be doomed to the wrong side of the digital divide, with no important employment in the area, no balanced market, and with nothing to say.
Rafael Bernal
Mexico City
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