full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Simon Anholt: Which country does the most good for the world?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also busseniess and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a bgiegr picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I decivsoerd something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study claled the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation bdnras Index over the years has grown to be a very, very lgrae database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are rgerdead. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and poerspr in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more trotsuis. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a ctnrouy with a very weak or a very nteaigve image, everything is dffiuclit and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to dveiler.
Open Cloze
So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also __________ and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a ______ picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I __________ something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study ______ the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation ______ Index over the years has grown to be a very, very _____ database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are ________. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and _______ in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more ________. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a _______ with a very weak or a very ________ image, everything is _________ and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to _______.
Solution
- bigger
- called
- tourists
- brands
- large
- negative
- difficult
- discovered
- regarded
- deliver
- country
- prosper
- businesses
Original Text
So I've spent a lot of the last 10 or 15 years trying to find out what could be that self-interest that would encourage not just politicians but also businesses and general populations, all of us, to start to think a little more outwardly, to think in a bigger picture, not always to look inwards, sometimes to look outwards. And this is where I discovered something quite important. In 2005, I launched a study called the Nation Brands Index. What it is, it's a very large-scale study that polls a very large sample of the world's population, a sample that represents about 70 percent of the planet's population, and I started asking them a series of questions about how they perceive other countries. And the Nation Brands Index over the years has grown to be a very, very large database. It's about 200 billion data points tracking what ordinary people think about other countries and why. Why did I do this? Well, because the governments that I advise are very, very keen on knowing how they are regarded. They've known, partly because I've encouraged them to realize it, that countries depend enormously on their reputations in order to survive and prosper in the world. If a country has a great, positive image, like Germany has or Sweden or Switzerland, everything is easy and everything is cheap. You get more tourists. You get more investors. You sell your products more expensively. If, on the other hand, you have a country with a very weak or a very negative image, everything is difficult and everything is expensive. So governments care desperately about the image of their country, because it makes a direct difference to how much money they can make, and that's what they've promised their populations they're going to deliver.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
good country |
4 |
awful lot |
2 |
human beings |
2 |
nation brands |
2 |
brands index |
2 |
admire countries |
2 |
lowest score |
2 |
started thinking |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
nation brands index |
2 |
Important Words
- advise
- bigger
- billion
- brands
- businesses
- called
- care
- cheap
- countries
- country
- data
- database
- deliver
- depend
- desperately
- difference
- difficult
- direct
- discovered
- easy
- encourage
- encouraged
- enormously
- expensive
- expensively
- find
- general
- germany
- governments
- great
- grown
- hand
- image
- important
- index
- investors
- inwards
- keen
- knowing
- large
- launched
- lot
- money
- nation
- negative
- order
- ordinary
- outwardly
- outwards
- partly
- people
- perceive
- percent
- picture
- points
- politicians
- polls
- population
- populations
- positive
- products
- promised
- prosper
- questions
- realize
- regarded
- represents
- reputations
- sample
- sell
- series
- spent
- start
- started
- study
- survive
- sweden
- switzerland
- tourists
- tracking
- weak
- world
- years