The West’s Soft Power was presumed to have helped win the Cold War. But there have been few attempts to measure soft power and this is the age of measurement. Now we have a very thought-provoking attempt from the Institute of Government (a private NGO) and Monocle magazine. The full report gives a sound review of soft power theory and the Index used to rank countries.

Imagine handing your Twitter account over to a stranger. Now imagine a country handing over its Twitter feed to a citizen. Crowdsourcing digital communications has reached a new level as @Sweden hands over the official Swedish Twitter account to one of its citizens for a week.

Chinese leaders, determined to persuade America that they mean no harm, have recruited Sun Tzu to their cause. China is hamstrung by a contemporary culture that has little global appeal. Since the present is a hard sell, China is having to lean heavily on the distant past.

What the report does highlight, however, is the need for SA to change some perceptions of our investment and economic climate.
SA remains a globally competitive economy and our best practices – in banking, stock market regulation and auditing and reporting in particular – have drawn favourable ratings from other world bodies.



According to an interview with American scholar Joseph Nye in the British magazine Monocle, nations can adopt more “soft power” measures, which can be used as a type of subtle cultural (and ultimately political) pressure to obtain goals without violence or military-driven exertions.

The competition, supported by Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Korean Culture and Information Service and the Presidential Council on Nation Branding, is expected to be held annually with the increasing popularity of Korean pop music and culture throughout the world.

For China, the quest to develop advanced computing centers is not simply a matter of national pride. It is an attempt to lay the groundwork for innovative Chinese companies and to reshape the technological landscape by doing something more than assembling the world’s desktop PCs.

North West, one of the country's agricultural and mining powerhouses, was the latest province to host a Brand South Africa stakeholder summit. The event, held on 28 November 2011, showcased local poultry operation Opti Chicks and its innovative business model.