Routes to Self Improvement

During some recent research, I was checking out  trends in the self improvement arena. As part of that, I was using Google's useful tool to find out what people were searching on, and how the patterns of behaviour were changing. One result that caught my eye was the trend in searches for "self improvement"; even more, the analysis given by Google of what regions those searches were coming from. I have no way of verifying the accuracy of Google's tool, but I am sure that it is improving all the time.

The screen shot below is from a Google Trends search on self improvement for all regions.

Ignore the period before mid 2006, Google was obviously still developing this tool and gathering data. Since then, the number of searches has been quite steady. Of course, there are many other search terms, under the umbrella of self improvement, that people might use, but I am showing these charts to illustrate a point. That point comes out in the chart below, which Google automatically creates.

This chart shows the top 9 countries for sources of the search term I used: "self improvement." 

You do not need a geography degree to see that the first three countries, Malaysia, India and Singapore, are all in Asia. Another thing they have in common is that they were all British colonies until independence in 1947 (India) and 1957 (Malaysia), with Singapore breaking away from the rest of the Malaysian states shortly after. By then, English had become a second or third language for a large part of the educated population.

Singapore is already a modern economic hub for the region, while Malaysia is determined to follow suit in becoming a fully developed country by 2020. Both have small populations. India has a massive population, but is equally capable of growing its economy for decades to come. Coming from Britain it may be nice to think that the progress of these countries is due to British occupation. That is not so. Singapore and Malaysia were left in poor condition when the British left, so it is the people who remained who take the credit for the progress into modernity since. The same applies to India as it transforms itself into a more modern economy.

Nothing can be proved with these charts, but they do indicate the desire of  people in Malaysia, Singapore and India to better themselves. Competing Western businesses will suffer long term if they ignore their determination, industriousness and patience  in improving their status.

I am sure this is a topic I will be coming back to next time.