Thang Nguyen 555

It’s McDonald 2nd day in Vietnam. You can’t miss it (the Golden Arches), coming South from Highway 1 (North-South) as you merge into the round-about. Location, location, location. The ride-in (for scooter) and drive-in (white Mercedes at my first sighting) were roped up, to train the mass on first-in first-out monochronistic order. The stage (first-day opening) and event staff still linger (one young man w/ side-way cap to differentiate himself from McDonald workers). Kids traveled by bus just to get here for the experience. It feels more like an amusement park more a fast-food launch. But then, both are into “experience” business e.g. clown, children air castle, and maps showing first-timers how to use drive-in windows (same thing happened in China, since drivers there were unaccustomed to drive-in).
Pre-orders were taken while you are in line, enabled by handheld touch pad, the same technology that makes our rental-car return a positive experience. I already had had my porridge lunch, but still tried to squeeze in a cheese burger and an ice-cream cup. This 2nd lunch cost twice as my first one, but the pickles were true to form. All out of curiosity.
Years ago, I had my first McBite at Penn State (see other blog)
I remember McDonald back then more for its fries than the Whopper across the street.
Now, that franchise brands are all here (Pop Eyes is right next door), with 99% available elements (I tried to order a milk shake to no avail. This should make Ray Kroc mad, given his pre-McDonald career as a milk-shake maker route salesman.)
Staff, some trained on the job, others newly recruited, perhaps fresh out of McU. The majority are in their early twenties, mixing with expats who serve as launch specialists. Inter-racial couples come on scooters, just to show the democratizing effect of the McDonald brand. Two countries with a McDonald are less likely to be at war with each other (Friedman’s espoused version on an old geo-political theory). In this case, it’s even less likely (what are the odds of getting hit by lightning twice in your lifetime?).
Customers were chatting and munching one fry at a time (two ketchup bags) to prolong this one-of-a-kind visit.
It’s more than a dining experience. For McDonald, the launch in Vietnam was well-timed with the right product and right location (Burger King and KFC have paved the way for this big flash).
The positive unintended consequences are benefiting adjacent neighborhood, who offers their sidewalk for scooter parking (small bike 5,000 VND, big bike 10,000 VND) and lunch places for McDonald staff (they still can’t afford to eat three McMeals a day). Last year, when Starbucks came, it made a flash just as big, then plateau out.
When looking for a place to empty out my tray, I got teary eyes all of a sudden: my first McBite in the US was associated with loneliness (why else would a foreign student seen eating dinner alone in a fast-food joint off campus), and now, my first McBite in Vietnam surprisingly evokes homesickness (what else can an expat do on a Sunday afternoon when he doesn’t take a nap like everyone else). The sweeping force of modernization which McDonald just happens to represent nudges us along the efficiency trajectory. Kids get dropped off to English school a few blocks away, even on a Sunday afternoon. Next week, when the ropes will be all removed, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them carry a Happy Meal bag along side their book bag. Just watch the waist line, kids.
The future belongs to you, and that future gets stretched out due to longer life expectancy. Brace and pace yourself for the long haul. Beware of anything that comes with “instant” like instant noodle, instant success ( Flappy Bird, a free game that had gone viral from Vietnam, saw instant success, and that was too much for its young inventor to handle).
There will be a few hic-cups (no milk shake or McCafe just yet, or that the real test comes in the rainy season), but by and large, young people here are on the right path, given the right opportunity. Opportunity which tends to dance with those who are already on the dancing floor. Had they pushed the fries, I would have declined .It’s not my first McBite and I don’t want this to be my last.

Recent studies show more American graduated from all levels of education than before the Recession. Other studies show older ones also tried their luck at start-ups and social entrepreneurship.
The first group just stay out of the depressing job market. The later, creating jobs for themselves and others, all the while, learning on the job to be their own boss.
I suspect there is another unaccounted group called stay-at-home dads or moms who try to save a few baby-sitting bucks.
Low-end restaurants like Panera Bread, hybrid between fast foods and Olive Garden, are holding out.
Japan faced similar changes in the 90’s with corporate lay-offs (unthinkable a generation before that), massive shift in post-industrialized world with people becoming quite disposable and machine quite acceptable.
By next year, we won’t even need someone to check our ticket or take our cash. Just swipe the card (translation: less available blue-collar jobs) or stay home waiting for Amazon drone-delivery (at least conceived and mentioned in passing).
I blogged some time ago about Machine and Me. It’s true that one can go about one’s day without a single human interaction. Chains like Carmax build their business model on no haggling i.e. car buying = appliance buying. Since each touchpoint is minimized, I also blogged about Hi Tech – Hi Touch, our increased need and hunger for organic relationship (now that we move on and off-line, just like a Toyota hybrid).
The Recession was partly caused by greed, but also by a confluence of factors such as regulatory blind spot, data-rich market on steroid (how else would Iceland get hit just equally hard, being miles away from Wall Street) and government reduced spending (post-cold war world).
Now, on this side of that economic tsunami, we pick up the pieces, while some people pick up their doctorate degrees or business licenses.
99 per cent of the population got hit in one form or other.
Or have a close relative or friend who did (unless they were in Healthcare).
Implying in Learning in Recession, was Living in Recession.
We are still here. Hopefully wiser, but certainly not without paying a high cost.

Leadership doesn’t happen overnight.
Since it encompasses many aspects e.g. character, skill-set, knowledge and drive, leaders are to be “incubated” ,  field tested and launched just like a product.
I remember VP Gerald Ford (more for Chevy Chase’s SNL rendering of him bumping clumsily against the door”) and how straightforward his speech was to the nation “our national nightmare is now over” in post-Nixon/Agnew era.
It did usher in a period of reconciliation ( a peanut farmer in the White House), of the Me generation (Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce sois?), the Iranian hostage crisis which then paved the way for the rise of the Moral Majority.
The Rand corporation has been a think tank who brainstorms scenarios  e.g. in crisis X, these are the predicted outcomes, but rarely do we see when Y is in leadership, these are the likely turn-outs.
CVS recently took a bold strategy by announcing that it planned to pull cigarettes off the shelves.
We are now officially entering the age of differentiation (health care pharmacy vs general drug store) and of reputational currency.
Just like the new chief of MS. He will have to make bold moves, risking profits and popularity to gain shares (obviously he has been groomed and fitted to be at the helm – black T-shirt …the Calvin Klein look).
We embrace global reach via satellite and broadband connection, yet we have no glue how to reposition our enterprises in this borderless 24/7 world e.g. outsourcing, off-shoring, insourcing, re-shoring etc… with regulatory, taxation, cross-market and labor complexity. (Greg Satell has a piece in Forbes on this very subject).

Leaders of the future will have to have:

– Core competency
– Transparency
– Vision
– Inter-disciplinary knowledge
– Skilled in diplomacy
– Ability to lead and step back
– Team building

– Delegating

– Decision making
– Understanding of market trends
– Understanding of people
– Control in crisis
– Passion for products, followed by profits
– Experience being a follower
– Empathy
– Ethics
– Optimism
– Communication and media-handling skills
– Leadership by example
– Change agentry skills

You know a great leader when you see one.
We self-project onto them all the time.
We want to grow up becoming like them.
We haven’t seen many great leaders , because we haven’t invested in grooming them.
Tomorrow’s leaders might come out of dysfunctional homes, failed states and bankrupted companies.
A few made it by sheer force of their own charisma e.g. Tesla’s CEO, Virgin’s CEO (screw if, let’s do it) , Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Clinton from Hope…

Underneath, we still behave in fight-or-flight mode as we have always.
Leaders are one-in-a-million type of people.
But some day, they will rise from the ashes. Fearless and undefeated, magnanimous and empathic.
They might be sitting in the wing (G Ford) or outside of the White House (Hillary). But watch and wait!
History has more patience than we do. And when it’s time, the right people will be in the right place to bring about reconciliation and healing “Our national nightmare is finally over”. Short, simple and straight to the point.

That’s what happened at Super Bowl and I believe even today, the Seahawks still practice that mindset.
Business leaders need a good dose of that. We are not the world. We are the winners (implied zero-sum game i.e. we win = you lose).
But people need to be clothed, fed, fueled up before they can get to your stores and buy your merchandise.
Business do not exist in a vacuum.
Buyers are people first, then consumers.
Since the recession, the FED started to lean more toward “regulating”  than “setting the interest rate” to nudge and restore market efficiency.
With the newly nominated chairwoman, let’s hope “we are the champions” once again sung at Winter Olympics.
Our best days are yet ahead. Wall Street has had a few good years, while Main Street, bad.
Tax coffer is nearly empty with off-shoring companies and unemployed workforce (who of course has become a burden to the system).
Can’t you feel the love tonight!
Fellow travelers on Space Ship Earth.
When the tornadoes and twisters hit a town, they hit the bank, the church and the farms all the same, indiscriminately.
We look at traditional India caste system, or South African Apartheid as backward.
How will future generations look back at ours? From that vantage point (with network efficiency and market efficiency), of abundance, our handling of this past Recession was the measure of our “advanced” society.
Of course, we appreciate common grace (rain on both the field of the good and the evil). But aside from that,
we leave it to fate, to Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, trusting the wisdom of crowd.
That wisdom happened to be engineered by a bunch of cigar-thumbing guys down Boca Raton, FLorida  around 2007, who sliced and diced CDO loan packages and resold them on world market.
Many people with clear head saw the phenomenon as “bubble” but conspired. Until friends and neighbors suffered from job loss, displacement and even suicide. Then we looked for guys like Madoff to “crucify” as sacrificial lambs (not that he was innocent or anything). And the crowd cries out for more…. Blood thirst sports. We are the champions of the world. Half of the stadium joins the chant. The other half, silent and stunt. Has always been that way when you subscribe to the zero-sum game, until a larger force (climate change) shows who is in charge.

With another headline about Russia school shooting, I seriously fantasize about the return of the bell-bottom pants, and flower shirts. The age of heightened consciousness, of holding each other’s hands and not holding others hostage.
Perhaps then, there was a hot war (Vietnam) broadcasted while we had our TV dinners that young students just went “contrarian”. Now, with regional and sectarian conflicts and no large scale draft mobilization, kids can’t find proper outlets for self-expression (go ahead and spray-paint, instead of spraying bullets). Even the inventor of the AK47 expressed some regrets at how much damage it had caused. By now, we have tested anything and everything that has to do with mass destruction (A-bomb to AK47) but not the means for peaceful co-existence.
Take a deep breath and realize that love and fear are two sides of the same coin. It’s a duality we just have to get used to.
John Lennon once said “we live in a society where we have to hide to make love, while mass killing takes place in broad day light”. It happened just today, the day before etc…
Again, it may sound silly, but if bringing back the flower power helps diffuse some youthful yearning and tension, then so be it.
Get down, get down tonight.
V sign is for Peace, not violence.
Musicians and singers can rally back a culture of tolerance and empathy (what happened to “We Are the World”). When you hold the mike, and have your 15-minute of fame, you are less likely to hold the gun to make your mark. At this edit, this Year’s Superbowl ads all return to family-friendly theme, no wardrobe malfunctioning. Good sign!
If we go on living, accepting school shooting as the new norm, then as a society, we need to have our heads examined.
No parent should have to fear for sending kids to school facing bullets instead of bullies. And no kid should have to fear for being held hostage like bank tellers in “Dog Day Afternoon”. In Russia today, those kids grew up really fast. And two adults’ lives (teacher and police man) were taken to satisfy a kid’s thirst for violence and significance. What happens to social media, to play ground, music and arts venues. Aren’t graffiti and tattoo/earrings enough, that they have to take zero-sum game to the ultimate level.
There is something going on, what it is, ain’t exactly clear. Back then, Marvin Gaye did not mean to ask about random gun violence. It was to question the system and its gravitational pull toward military industrial complex canned solution to world’s problems. In the present time, he would have to rephrase his rhetorical question down to a miniscule level, fits for the dorm and door of our schools.

I have had the opportunities to listen to Reagan, Clinton, Bush and just now Obama’s State of the Union 2014.
The applause at the end was the longest, for Cory, a veteran of the Afghan war, soon to be ended. He personifies not only what’s best, but also what’s so burdensome about America’s entanglement in worlds affairs i.e. “alleviate every man’s fear and want”. What a “white men burden”, while at home, people either not working , or not receiving unemployment benefits if any. America’s exceptionalism collides with inclusivism.
Manufacturing jobs will soon be “in-sourced” to reverse the offshoring trend (tax code and labor code remain a challenge). “Give them a raise” (camera shot shows Union Leader in the audience).
Heard it before.
Already, the RAND corporation released an 11-point scenario on “should N Korea fail”.
It’s true that the chiefs of military establishment were present but the emphasis has clearly swung toward the exercise and exertion of “soft powers” e.g. Iran cooperation and sanction as last resort.
Some have compared Obama’s oratory skills to that of Reagan’s. In this, I beg to differ. At the end of Reagan’s speech, he helped us visualize an America, a city on the hill (the drive through breath-taking 101 coastal highway in his home state, California).
I still remember that vivid picture in my head years later.
Just as I will with that ending applause and appreciation for Cory, but this ending did not require one’s effort to visualize the scenic drive. It’s true there is so much goodness in America past and present (equal pay for equal work, voting acts, broadband and healthy school lunch). But because it stretches itself too thin (the world) and too deep (invention of the future – environmental leader), it is vulnerable and resource-fatigue.
Call it Messianic complex (whose end is crucifixion) mixed with entrepreneurial drive (top 1 per center, and the widening gap of upward mobility. During the Gold Rush, it’s those who sold pixels and blue jeans that actually made money).
It’s not hard to notice the mixed bag of priorities: we want to lead, we want you to join, we want you to pay and we want you to sacrifice, all for an ideal that lately has not worked for Main Street.
I also noticed the absence of Hillary Clinton, now replaced by John Kerry (whose camera shot appeared right after Mr John McCain, who liberal voting records made him less popular among GOP peer). I am glad it’s been a long way since the 10 Japanese-American internment camps to the 10 Research centers for Innovation across the country. It’s 2014, not 1954. A chamber full of women representatives (which helps our cameraman to pan easily to make the point about progress on women issues) visually paints the point on “what good for women is good for America”.
Who wouldn’t applaud that (they represent our mothers, wives and sisters). Still they earn 70+ cents on the dollar men earn. So the speech should have been twice as long if all issues were to be addressed. No mention of NAFTA disappointment for Mexico, or the sale of Google’s Motorola to Lenovo (already wobbled up Think Pad and IBM server division. Yet cheers were across the room at the mention that it’s US and not China that is now number one preferred investment destination). At least, the gun violence incidents in school, mall and theater were mentioned briefly.
What a mixed record, and like the heightened results on Wall Street of late, none of the money has trickled down to Main Street. Both New York and Washington are conveniently located too far from heartland America or the borders of Texas for ordinary folks to see real changes.
I would wait until the illegal crossing activities to pick up as better indicators of a recovering economy.
It makes for poor visualization (human crossing) of an otherwise nice speech wrap-up.

In 1984 the Orwellian prophetic version did not materialize. That year saw the Mac commercial at Superbowl half-time (down with Big Brother).
I guessed the underdog was supposed to be Apple Computer (later “Computer” got dropped because Apple wanted to diversify its product), and Big Brother, IBM.
Now, we face the NSA vs Snowden (remember Salmon Rushdie and the prize on his head?).
The system vs single person, on the run, as fictionally depicted in Harrison Ford in the Fugitive or Robert Redford in 3 Days of the Condor. Paranoid and plot (conspiracy theory).
Never before a person is empowered with that much computing power, yet,  he/she gives up his/her privacy so willingly.
People voluntarily upload their own sex acts onto free sites, hence blurring the public-private divide.
We have been around for centuries, lived, learned, loved and left artifacts and artworks (evidence that we did exist at a moment in time).
Only now that someone’s behind-closed-door scenes come digitally behind our closed-door (no more XXX theater and its incognito audience).
2014 bears no special marks, unlike 1984 or 2000 (Y2K). So we look back to the invention of the Mac, the Orwellian anniversary, and the stock market exuberance (which crashed in 1987).
30 years is just a blink of an eye. More kids in the family, divorce and bankruptcy, disruption and distraction.
Friendship is put to the test. Passion and hobby as well. I have a close friend. He used to be into bowling. Now, flying remote toy airplanes.
Changing spouses and changing games.
Nobody bothers to question the evolution of technology which lately has accelerated and clustered. After all, we are just consumers and users. Leave the debate to Congress and the EU. Spectrum and sine waves, signals and sound. Yet, those right-of-ways are inelastic. Can’t be expanded forever (dark fiber).
So year to year, we hope against hope that next year is going to be better, if not in the US, then in China (after all, it’s a global world now). Forget NAFTA and how devastated the Mexico economy has become. Just move on to Trans-Pacific Partnership, ETA etc.. Ink some more deals and pay the advice fees. Those who are in the middle actually benefit the most regardless. The poor? Oh well, they will always be with us. At least, the new Pope realizes this, having cooked his own meal and taken a bus to work. I thought we would have developed better capacity for empathy by now, given three decades since the advent of “personal” computer. Are we going to leave that (empathy) to the machine as well?
At this rate, the only attention we get might be from our own invention, to memorize, to think and someday, to feel in our place (in Japan, senior care is outsourced to robot-nurse). 3,000 years on, archaeologist digs will turn up many pieces of machinery, from mainframe to mac, from dumb terminal to smart phone.
I wonder what else will be out there then, that can truly represent us – our imprints and impression (machines tend to “clone” themselves with each step in the AI evolution chain.) No wonder Van Goh and Picasso still command large sums at auction. Orwellian world did not come about in 1984 or 2014. It’s already existed way before due to our weak nature – wanting to follow the crowd, embracing the system at the cost of our inalienable rights to pursue happiness in our terms.

The Superbowl committee have been on edge about whether to go ahead with plan B.

At least it helps occupied the nation’s attention. Unlike two recent disturbing incidents: one was a random suicide murder in Columbia, MD mall, and an arrest of a Penn State student (Altoona campus) for possession of marijuana and weapon of mass destruction charges.

Quote from his roommate, “he was just bored”. Yeah, right! The Shinning “I am so bored, I am so bored, I am so bored” being cooped up inside, cabin fever etc….

So are millions if not billions of Super Bowl fans. People are working night and day trying to clear the snow off the NJ stadium, while two people, wired differently, trying to “take someone out”.

Every year, around this time,  the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year, then we got the Super Bowl, and the State of the Union address. Commerce, culture, sports and politics, all jockey for our TOMA (Top of Mind Attention).

GDP growth (or decline) reports are in at this time as well. China 7.7 etc…

Pay attention to those numbers. Because the producers-turned-consumers are out shopping, instead of saving. This will change the retail landscape e.g. new love for French wine etc…(why not California?).

I root for the US, its informal and fun culture, at work and at play. But we are losing our winning edge, due to complacency and sorry to say, ignorance of “the rise of the rest” as put by Fareed Zakaria.

We have 3 decades in the lead, since the Mac. Now, IBM keeps selling, first the ThinkPad, to Lenovo, then the server part of the business, to hoard cash for the Watson launch.

In California, the US investors retreat to San Diego, leaving real estate properties to Japanese and Korean in Los Angeles (ARCO towers), and to the Chinese (and Twitter) in SF.

Wake up, play ball, face the headwind and rise again. Peyton Manning is ready. Are you? A chance at greatness. A trumpet call to make things happen. I will never forget how a quarterback (New Orleans’ Saints) can turn around not only a team but a town, right after Katrina. Maybe there is hope this time again, so kids won’t be so bored that they want to blow things up. It’s time to harness our energy, to be instruments of mass construction, not mass destruction. America, take a page from others’ play book. It’s humbling, but will prove prompt and practical, by sheer results. Like Steve Jobs, one might need to take a calligraphy class during down time or drop-out in his case, just to see it used later in the Mac product line.

A few weeks ago, some argument over texting in a Florida movie theater got someone killed.

Last week, Kim Dang who had wanted someday to be a talk-show host, got kicked to death outside a revived Santa Ana club (as of this edit, prosecutors are still gathering evidence about the case e.g was Kim walking in front of someone’s picture-taking (photobomb), or just stood in line, but the photo taker backed up and bumped into here while she stood in line.

Both incidents involved the use of a smart phone, on a night out, when people were seeking pleasure, not problem.  Mountain was made out of mole hill.

It’s that easy to turn your night-out into your last.

These two deaths wouldn’t have occurred 30 years ago. Incidentally, that was when the Mac first came out, giving us the first taste of “personal” computer.

Communication devices arrived to make our lives easy? Not for those two dead people.

I am not a Luddite.

But I also love to connect the dots e.g. how technology has ushered in not utopia but unintended consequences.

Yesterday, I saw a headline about a Chinese internet addict camp.

Just wait a decade to see technological consequences all accounted for: from being anti-social behavior to being on edge (for not being connected).

Already expressed by New Yorkers that they would rather lose their wallets over the phone (forced choices). Others keep taking pictures of themselves and post them online, waiting for Likes.

The contrarians already advocate screen-sabbatical (one day a week away from the screens).

In a month or so, Samsung plans to inaugurate its largest phone factory in North Vietnam. Not bad for world’s best brand to put factory in world’s most famous post war locale.

It would be the equivalent of putting “cloud computing” in Northern Iraq where missiles used to “rain down” (CNN first live coverage with Peter Arnett from behind the front).

Or Justin Bieber’s breaking arrest news interrupted a congress-woman interview on MSNBC (networks still try to “scoop” one another for rating).

It’s a sign and symptom of our age: en-amouring with celebrities and vanity, especially one who can boost rating (OJ Simpson trial, Princess Diana and the paparazzi).

So permeating and popular that what once considered exclusive ( photos of celeb on vacation etc…), now available to anyone with a smart phone. So go on with texting, and multi-tasking, chatting and cheating on social network.

At least two people, given a chance would wish they hadn’t gone out , carrying the phones with them. Phones and associated technology are neutral. What society does with it is quite another matter.

RIP Kim Dang, and the other x-navy Floridian man. Both did not get to enjoy those entertainment venues in 2014, but could have, had it been 1984.