Businesses serving consumers - shops, restaurants, bars but also musea, public transportation companies you name it – around the world are thinking about how to function in a society where people have to keep a safe distance. See for instance this article about McDonalds
​https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/dutch-mcdonalds-trials-social-distancing-restaurant

Facemasks can help perhaps as The Atlantic describes  
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/dont-wear-mask-yourself/610336/?fbclid=IwAR1o6xJ9k0FKTnVLeQR8ZLeaGjpn2ljWI8UlUHa0IF09lgGdpaeCF7_2Sy4
but one aspect is continuously overlooked…

With venues limiting visitors the automatic results are queues… and in most countries (forget the Brits here…) people hate queues. So wouldn’t it be wise to extend opening hours? All around the world people following a 9 – 6 schedule but that only became commonplace after WWII… why not open up and extend opening hours?
 
What do you think? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

This article https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/some-people-spreading-fake-news-about-foreign-worker-dorms-to-incite-violence-shanmugam?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=STFB&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR05SWzu-ZIgQHMQBNZq-DL2VCIQm_UpqOxSpqdT_e1-1gi65rRZQZZtiFo#Echobox=1588150773 in the StraitsTimes of Singapore earlier this week is both puzzling and worrying. Let me explain why…

Fake news can be annoying and dangerous, but who decides what is news and what is fake? If that is the government, what happens with freedom of speech and press?

When is news ‘news’ and when is it just gossip? When people meet in a café a lot of nonsense is often shared… that’s what social gathering is about. So how different is FaceBook or a WA group? Is that a place to gossip and share personal opinions or is what is posted there considered ‘news’ ?

Finally, the article talks about spreading fake news with malicious intent. So what defines malicous? And how do you know the intent behind most messages? Of course sometimes the intent of postings is clear but often it is not; posting is fast and immediate and people just blurt out whatever comes to mind.
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People need to be educated and the government should moderate and protect and could perhaps threaten and punish less. The question is “does a government trust it’s people?”. It should.  

The pandemic puts governments and leaders around the world to the test. Being based in Singapore most of the year I was proud at the rapid response and the fact that there was no need for a lockdown.
Quickly it proved though that the government overlooked homes for the elderly, daycare, (super) markets and tuition centers and most notably housing of foreign workers. The measures taken and the advise to citizens seemed adequate but could simply not be followed by many because of their working and living environment. If you live with 20 people in a 40 sqm room and earn a few hundred dollar a month it’s hard to practise social distancing.

The number of cases exploded and Singapore is now for the 4th week in lockdown which is called a ‘circuit breaker’ locally.

More stringent measures are taken to get the numbers under control but the sheer number of foreign workers makes the issue hard to handle, leaving the migrant workers themselves in a ‘surreal life’ as this article illustrates https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3081538/surreal-life-singapore-covid-19-circuit-breaker-and-migrant

At the same time the iron fist of the law strikes harder and harder as these articles illustrate https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-british-national-deported-barred-from-re-entering-12678036  and www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/false-message-facebook-covid-19-coronavirus-man-charged-12678986 

What do you think? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

​       
Communal living – sharing some of your private space with others is not new as this article from 2009 illustrates https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/oct/24/communal-living-neighbourhood.
​Actually,  household sizes continuously reducing in the Western world is a relatively recent development. In Asia extended families often live under one roof and so do people in other parts of the world.

Therefore it is no surprise that even in Europe and North America communal living is a topic of conversation.
 
What do you think? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

Quoting one of our favourite magazines https://monocle.com/minute/2020/02/01/punchy-and-profound/#6
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“And while experiential is getting talked up, the shops we see making money are like a good magazine: passionate about what they do, good at telling stories, carefully edited, both innovative and reliable, and confident of their brand values.”
Online shopping is not going to go away, but brick-and-mortar still has a future. If you do it well of course…
 
What do you think? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

19 January– 
I’m a fan both of Monocle and of the KIS principle… never lose sight of the basics. Well described in this article https://monocle.com/minute/2020/01/11/keep-it-simple/#1
A unique selling point needs to be simple. Service needs to be simple. Products need to be simple. If you cannot explain what makes you special in 1-minute to your mom or a 6 year old you don’t understand the key well enough yourself.
So KIS 😊
We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

Economic growth is the goal for most countries and governments, perhaps with the exception of Bhutan where they have formalised national wealth not only in terms of money. Although energy and production in general continue to become cleaner – at least in the developed world – the overal CO2 emissions, plastic in the oceans and all other sorts of polution keep growing.

Read some more on the topic here… https://monocle.com/minute/2019/11/09/pace-of-change/#5. Even if an economy grows ‘only’ by 3% that means doubling the economy in 20 years…

​So what is the answer, what say you? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

Most of us know by now that there are 3 things we need to avoid if we want to reduce our carbon footprint: driving a car, eating meat and flying.
That’s difficult perhaps so is there a way to fly green? According to this article there is at least a possibility to try… https://monocle.com/minute/2019/11/28/change-is-in-the-air/#4
 
What say you? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

​A permit to own a car     
In most countries in the world you can buy a car if you have money. In Singapore you first need a permit to own one. Admitted: usually a permit – a Certificate of Entitlement or CoE – is bought together with the car but still the principle remains the same. Essentially the demand for cars is made to match the supply of roads (which is inflexible by nature) .
Not a bad idea. Or is it?
 
What say you? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour

8 November 2019 – The end of alcohol
A common advise is not to drink more than a glass a day; in a country like the Netherlands about half of all adults follows that advise ( https://www.staatvenz.nl/kerncijfers/alcohol-geen-weinig-gebruik). So you can hardly argue that drinking is the rule, unless you go to a bar of course… why go to a watering hole without drinking.
Even more so, drinking is more and more frowned upon and the focus is redirected to food and sleep as this article eloquently describes https://www.1843magazine.com/upfront/postcard-from-silicon-valley/in-the-modern-commune-a-case-of-beer-is-not-welcome
What do you say? We welcome your ideas, links and feedback.
 
The Neighbour