Tag: ABC News

Voice & Video

Via camera phone, satellite uplink and YouTube upload, we got pictures and sound of the upheaval in Libya up to the minute.

The golden gun (its now-deceased owner must have watched James Bond’s Gold Finger), the Club Car and female bodyguards.

When I was growing up, we were cooped up inside the house (curfew) while news of a regime toppling beamed through state-controlled radio.

One military leader after another read prepared statements after both Diem’s brothers got assassinated in Cho Lon, Vietnam’s largest Chinese enclave.  Then, there was counter-coup and counter-counter coup (I lost count).

Back in 1963, to listen to the radio, we had to put our imagination to work.  School was out (our version of “snow day”) while Marshall law took control of the streets. Fear and trepidation were in the air. Everyone felt helpless. In short, breaking events weren’t unfolded as neatly and with instant access as they now are.

Before digital, networks had to spend time laying  the control track (on the 3/4 inch video), then the sound track and finally the B roll (video track).

Now, we got Instant access via Web apps, today’s B-roll , from the desert.

Every revolution seemed to culminate in Occupy the Broadcast Station.

Hugo Chavez and his band of brothers once tried just that, only to find out it had been moved. They were captured and jailed afterwards (partly for not having a Google map update).

Speaking of Google which purchased YouTube.

Although the later barely is profitable, it adds value to Google’s central strategy (organize the world’s information).

Where else can cable news get their video source to show, for instance, a Chinese toddler get ran over twice ( Where was the Good Samaritan in number 2 economy?).

Or an inappropriate tweet (and later denial) which derailed a Congressman career.

Voice and video in our time.

ABC News digs up its archive to show Barbara Walter’s decade-old interview with the Colonel, who was,  in her words, “vain”.

She got a career boost after joining  Walter Cronkite on his MidEast trip to interview President Sadat (now, we have woman as Editor-in-Chief at the NYT).

Back then as it is now, foreign experience makes or breaks a reporter’s career ( Dan Rather, Peter Jennings both had their early start in Vietnam).

Today, we’ve got  Independent Television News and Al Jazeera that supply voice and video feed for our 24/7 cable news cycle. This empowers a generation of digital camera-phone owners to become amateur stringers. If Chavez had to do it again, he wouldn’t need to occupy the broadcast station: just press Record and Send. Voila! Voice and Video. However shaky the shots, speed trumps (broadcast) standard. Wonder what they have to do at the FCC to cope with information explosion. And it doesn’t end there with Google satellite and  street maps. The EU has just sent up a new horde of advanced satellites into orbit. It’s a classic case of dictator’s dilemma: when one can have (information) access, all, the opposition included, can too. To deny one is to deny all. Yet, in abundance of choices,  I just miss those radio days “when I was young, I listen to the radio, waiting for my favorite song…”; this “hot” medium forced me to exercise my imagination (e.g. visualizing a live soccer match) based solely on voice and no video .  Now, everything is put on display, even what’s inside a Libyan food freezer. Gory and Gold Finger.

If you could read me

You would find that I am surprised by the number of employees Google and Apple employed only 75,000 combined (compared that with HP, GM or US Government‘s).

You would find that I still remember “the jumpers” on 9/11, and that we lost good men and women on United Flight 93, as well as Peter Jennings of ABC News.

You would find that after the ATT and T-Mobile proposed merger (or blocked, if DOJ won), I would be at a total loss in a post-telecom world (now they call it Information Technology, once convergence is completed). if Bill Gates, then, at the top of his form, couldn’t see the relevance of the Internet, then who would? Now, people are rolling out 3-D TV‘s and Google glasses.

Speaking of which, the price of contact lenses never dropped in the 30 years.

If you could read my mind, you would say I am crazy to be bothered with world events.

With technology and its ever-shortened cycles (Editor of Techcrunch even stepped down to handle CrunchFund), we need algorithms like Summl to sort out relevance for us.

I forgot to plug-in the landline wire after the Cable guy had installed my video, broadband and phone. It’s a sign that I am so used to wireless devices.

If you could read my  mind, you would know I long for “Yesterday” , not so much for the brick phone (Motorola) with accompanied battery pack. A lot of people still enjoy having their 2500 phone set, with its loud and reliable ring tone for incoming calls (for outgoing calls, the ringing  was “manufactured” by the phone company while waiting for the call to be connected). BTW, a friend noticed that in the US , graves sites are often hidden among well-manicured lawn. Yes, it’s a country that looks forward to  the future, unlike in Italy, where there is a profession called Restoration (Art).

If you could read my mind, you would know that I respect my colleagues who day-in-and-day-out , post relevant and professional tips that pay-forward.

If you could read my mind, you would know that I have never been good at being a fake, so I might as well be authentic.

If you could read my mind, you would know that you and I have been bystanders watching systemic and structural changes (outsourcing and automation).

It happened even when we were asleep. It’s like when your kids all of a sudden need new uniforms, a set of bras, a larger pair of shoes. Before you know it, the frog could no longer flex its muscles having enjoyed a slow-heated bath for too long.

If you could read my mind, you would know I dread the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

I can’t explain to my kids what Post-traumatic stress is e.g. exiling from home, a marriage break-up, a job disappearance etc….  I might be over-protective, but I know they grow up with situation awareness, limited options, forced choice, like the jumpers’ on 9/11 as they escaped the towering inferno, even for a brief few seconds of free-falling.

Wonder if we could read their minds on that fateful  day!

Justice we can use

Some people go through life without experiencing love.

But today, we all experience justice. Put the economy, the environment , and the bad debt aside.

It’s the kind of justice we can use. Black and white kind of justice. Not just the American way. It’s universal. It brought closure to the 3000 families and a plundering decade.

Like you, I can still see the inferno in my mind as if it just happened yesterday.  It actually killed Peter Jennings who was anchoring ABC News at the time.

Mr Jennings also co-authored The Century (America 1900-2000). He must have examined in-depth the multitude of stories: the good, bad and ugly. But 9/11 dealt him a knock-out blow. (He took up smoking again, which eventually ended his life).

Since Bin Laden denied thousands of innocent people their rightful and productive lives , his was finally revoked. I wish Mr Jennings were still here to deliver that ABC news brief.

Justice is surpassed only by love, according to St Paul. This weekend, we got a glimpse of both : from the wedding in England to the takedown in Pakistan. I know it’s been painful: the agony, anxiety and anger. Finally we can use some justice. Not a moment too late. To be human among a sea of humanities at this moment is a privilege. I will always remember the night I read this news. My “where were you when they shot JFK moment”. Not every day is the same. Not in this Century. I am sure the next co-author of 21st Century will have to include this night’s (5/1/2011) as very noteworhty.

Powerful women

World’s oldest woman. 115 years old. Oldest man, from Japan, 116 years old. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47.

World population has increased drastically. (Bio tech century). At the nano level, we can detect early symptoms of all sorts of disease (nano pharma).

Ironically, as the West is more aware of health issues and is taking preventive measures (diet, exercise and environmental retrofit), China with a huge population has to shallow the consequences of rapid industrialization , urbanization, obesity and pollution.

Asked on ABC News why Chinese children are much fatter than early generation, Ms Lee replied “because of China’s increased milk consumption.”

Charlie Rose asked Yang Lan, coined Chinese Oprah, about her agenda. The reply: capacity-building and to realize a civil society.

I believe she will see it realized. After all, she commands 200 million viewers each show (compared to O’s 7 million).

BTW, she was among the speakers at Fortune 2010 Most Powerful Women conference. Being in Media, and being a woman in today’s China , she signed up with Creative Artist in Hollywood which helped land interviews such as Charlie Rose’s and a piece in Fast Company. In Vietnam, I heard a story that all three powerful media owners are females who got their start as receptionists of a hotel on Saigon’s main tourist hub.

Our 21 st century produces not only media moguls, powerful women as heads of state (see portraits here

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Current-women-heads-of-state )

but also longer life (TIME Nov 15 documents a larger percentage of women making electronic purchase decision as well as watching NFL football).

In marketing, we calculate CLV (customer lifetime value). These numbers will only grow larger in both breath and depth. Who would have thought cell phone penetration as now is.. First, the voice call.

Then come the apps. The village ladies in India and Africa could walk for miles as mobile pay phones to make a small profit on each call. To them, it’s nothing, compare to whatever they have carried on their heads for centuries. Once every one has a mobile phone, these early adopters will have moved on to owning a coke stand then a beauty salon.

Three cheers for technology and globalization but also, for  women progress, for in Ms Yang Lan’s words, capacity-building to realize the Chinese dream. Amelia Earhart would have been proud. She would have been 116 years of age today.

 

Both sides now

ABC News last broadcast of 2009 featured some celebrities we have lost, among them, one of its own: Peter Jennings.

Peter’s most memorable quote:: “when I look at a coin, instinctively, I want to flip it to see the other side”.

He used to take a bunch of books to read on plane rides, according to his biographer.

The inquisitive mind. Intolerance for ambiguity. Searching for a whiter shade of pale.

Toffler recounted a conference he had attended, where a man essentially said that he had done manual labor all his life, and then, just wanted to die an educated man.

Learning to learn.

From the vantage point of “the other side” , we can now afford to look back at the Digital Decade. A the macro level we got Health Care and Homeland Security. At the human level, we rediscovered bravery: rescue on the Hudson, fourth plane over Pennsylvania, and most recently, a Dutch passenger over Detroit.

We continue to underestimate our own capacity for good and evil.

Something is hard-wired in our brain (positive wiring, and negative wiring). That’s nature. Managerial conclusion ranging from aristocracy to meritocracy, from X to Y and Z. Post-industrial society pushes its manufacturing model (plants and machine) to the Far East (China is outsourcing this down to Vietnam, end of the supply chain). This made all the debate over NAFTA a waste i.e. Samsung digital TV made in Asia vs analog TV set made in Mexico, inter-America trucking vs intercontinental shipping.

Apple has its server farm in North Carolina, 19th century home to the textile and furniture industries.

Waltham, Erie and Pittsburgh all get a life extension, thanks to post-industrial reinvention, from factory to fab.

If Peter Jennings were alive today, he would still be flipping the coin to see what’s out there.

(being from Canada, and stationed overseas in Vietnam, the Middle East and England , he apparently saw it all).

Maybe the imminent phasing out of newspaper is not bad (NYT goes global today).

In Network Effect, the Economist concludes that people still need the news, even if they don’t need newspapers.

People once thought telegraph spelled death to newspapers. As it turned out, telegraph helped speed up the news.

One thing is certain: with broadband, more people will get their news and get it fast.

Speed, survival and self management ( a term used by Peter Drucker in this knowledge economy e.g. to learn, to mutate and to adapt.) To die an educated man, let’s flip the coin to see the other side.