Tag: Bill Gates

Admired Adults

As Yahoo News flashes Most Admired Person of the Year, I can’t help reflecting on Adults I most Admired ever.

From a teacher friend of my mom to complete strangers in heartland America, from a relief worker in the Pacific to far-away Africa, I remember them not so much for how much they were giving , but for HOW they go about giving.

The troubling thing about our century is not only there exists huge inequity, but also the ineffective venues to bridge that gap.

I had a glimpse of hope when the richest men of our age (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) went to China to take pledges (gone are the days that rich is equated with being white, and poor, color folks).

Then it has been quiet all of a sudden.

What happened to those pledges of  The Millionaire Round Table? Meanwhile, the best investment we can make as a society is school lunch program with good nutrition.

When I was growing up, there was bread subsidies distributed through my mom’s school. I can type these words today partly thanks to those surplus flour flowing our way back then.

When one is hungry, the only thing in mind is to go out and find something to eat. Heck with ethics, eco-system or e-government.

Adults just don’t get it.

And when they do, it’s too late.

The damage has been done irrecoverably.

Later in life, I tried to put myself through school, and not just one. But two Christian graduate schools. Still, my early formation had been solidified by the time I got through admission. How I viewed right and wrong, what’s cool and what’s not, and whom I can trust.

When one grew up in war-time, observing the said and the done, and how far they were apart, one quickly grasps what reality gap was all about.

I empathize with my children, with young people growing up in war, in recession and in debt.

They are the ones without representation, without lobbyist in the hall of power (maybe with the exception of Michelle Obama and her school-lunch push).

Asked any school kid today. Would you find they want to grow up to be a policy maker? To un-jam the process called gridlock and filibuster?

Japan itself has lost one generation to gaming, virtual reality and most recently Fukushima.

Meanwhile, Samsung has become the number-one global brand, surpassing Apple and Coke.

Maybe we can all use a little Korean discipline. But first, show me some models I can admire. Someone who takes the bus to work and cooks his own meal.

Then maybe I will pay attention to ethics, eco-system and e-government.

My mom’s friend whom I will never forget, came to our house on New Year’s day. Per custom, she gifted the children with lucky money (Tet).

But instead of using paper money, folded neatly inside those red envelopes like everyone else, she made me open my two hands. Then one by one, she filled them with shiny pennies until I could no longer hold them. The weight of coin currencies still impressed upon me til this day. It’s not how much or how often one should give. It’s the way we go about giving. And on reflecting about New Year and giving, I promise myself not only to give often, but to pay special attention to the way I go about giving. Make it worth their while to receive from you. As Thomas Merton says “the poor was given the rich a chance to give. Both need each other” (paraphrasing);, those who give have more options and time to go to the bank and exchange the money, in any denomination. The poor, on the receiving end, can only accept  payment without option (the homeless don’t have a home address to receive checks).  Just make sure by the time bread get to their mouths, it’s not stale. If so, it’s a poor reflection on the most admiring exchange between human being. Most Admired Adult of 2013? You, when you start giving in the most humane way.

10,000 hours

How many among us actually put in that many hours pursuing one thing?

Yet studies show it takes that much practice to master a skill or a trade.

That long to promote ourselves to the rank of outlier : Bill Gates coding skill, the Beatles smooth performance etc…

Today marks my first 10,000 views of this silly blog, which I started as an experiment, to see if the Recession would break or make me as in Hemingway‘s Farewell to Arms “the world breaks them all…but we remain strong in broken places”.

I started blogging when I was married, until I am single again for two years.

It remains my focal point and commitment. To fail time and time again, and stand up if not standing tall.

I am sure the Beatles learned this lesson. They put it in the lyrics of My Sweet

Guitar Gently Weeps “with every mistake, we will surely be learning”.

As adults, we  shy away from trying out new things, meeting new people and going to new places.

We take the path of least resistance. I have friends who keyed down the karaoke coding for their song list, and started to punch them in while the rest of us fumble through the dirty pages of its song book. Apparently these people just want to stay within their range and comfort zone.

I understand the fear of the unknown.  I am living it everyday: from motor-biking on the streets of Saigon, to meeting new faces.

I often found relief, culturally, when going indoor, air-conditioned and culturally conditioned (English-speaking, pipe-in music, and preferably with a menu I can order from without hesitation).

The American part in me must be the true Quiet American, seeking and embracing the Third Force.

Neither here nor there. So sometimes, I escape to my cocoon.

Expats who came here from the Philippines, Singapore and America express similar sentiments.

They are a bit homesick. Like during this time of the year. White Christmas and Oh Holy Night.

It gets cool here but not winter cold. I still put on my shorts and T-shirt, sandals and helmet.

Perhaps it will take a total of 10,000 hours of coming back and living in Vietnam for me to hone my survival skill.

People seem to go about their daily lives, not in quiet desperation, and certainly, not constituting “the lonely crowd” as David Reisman puts it. I hardly came across news of lonely people commit suicide over Christmas holidays as I had read in the States.

On Christmas Eve, in Saigon, people just pour out onto the streets, taking souvenir photos, in front of major hotels (using  their decorations as photo-shoot background) and go to the church (Notre Dame du Saigon). The sacred and profane intersect that night like an annual eclipse.

It’s known as Noel, after the French. And well-off families would gather for Reveillon mid-night dinner.

Now that part I can relate to. The feeling of in but not of it, alone in the crowd, celebrating but not belonging.

Something significant takes place in those hours, of the crowd pushing but not hurrying, dressing up but not showing off.

Just logging in another year, an hour or ten hours toward that something called life experience.

Now that I have put down my humble and jumble thoughts, being viewed for more than 10,000 times, I hope I can detect a pattern. Some of you are also lonely, but not to the point of desperation. It’s our Christmas and Holy Night.

Someone important is joining our party. Might not “tenu de soiree”, but wrapped in peasant cloth. To the trained eyes (the 3 kings), it’s a phenomenon. But to us, commoners, our instinct tells us it’s an event not to be missed. Cut through the noise and clutter, we might find the gem. No matter how you view Nativity, Christmas is here to stay. An excuse for us to affirm our humanity and to be validated. Yes, you are still here. I am still here. Mistakes and all. 10,000 hours to go. Starting now. We’ve only just begun. With baby steps. With starting point in the manger or manager office. As long as we don’t lose sight of that child-like fearlessness, of trying out new things, seeing new faces and learning a few more lines of poem, of lyrics or famous motivational quotes.

The intent of 10,000-hour grunt is not to discourage us. It is rather a reinforcement and affirmation for us to keep trying and fail, instead of fail to try. ( I know the difference between this and the definition of insanity). Persistence is fumble after fumble without losing enthusiasm, says Winston Churchill (I have just learned this quote today). Merry Christmas to you and yours. Never stop trying.

 

Content poor

Latest study pointed to Vietnam workforce skill deficiencies, particularly in critical and behavioral skills (numerical skill was a given).

This study came not as a surprise. For years, kids have adopted a rote learning, picked up from peers and adults, who in turn, had picked up from earlier generations.

We are heading toward an era when technological platforms are abundant, but content wanting.

It is an equal of having all the stages in the world, smoke machines, sound machines, lighting machines, keyboards and sound effects machines, but no singer and composer.

Take the Beatles rooftop performance of  “Don’t let me down” as an example.

It was a winter day in England. Who would have thought of going out and holding an impromptu concert on the roof top, with “social proof” crowds gathered on the street and London police kept quite busy?

According to Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, the Beatles by then had played together for nearly 10,000 hours, first in Hamburg strip clubs, then elsewhere (except Japan where they were banned) before that memorable Rooftop concert.

Michael Jackson did buy all their copyrights knowing those were treasure troves.

Now, Bill Gates and tribes have risen, with Windows and Outlook for the desktop.

In short, the nerds have taken over. And there is nothing we can do about it.

Hardware rules. Until now.

Someday we will wake up and realize, what’s happened here?

Since when do we need to turn on the machine first thing as opposed to burning the incense? Bowing at the virtual altar and not the ancestral one?

Where are our priorities? chasing after the next version of the x-box at Best Buy and whatever OEM  happen to retail at the time?

One machine that has had some staying power (because it caters to a communal need): the karaoke machine. It cuts out the band (in its original meaning) and allows the mass to pick their own content and lyrics. Voila! instant party.

Cheers.

It asks little of us: cognitive skill (knowing which song and how to encode it), behavioral skills (how to take your turn and compete) and of course, numerative skill (tabulating the scores if you compete in teams).

Back to our skill deficiency alarm. If kids are allowed to explore and exploit their multi-talents, whether it’s in sports (Vietnamese women soccer team might score big this year, World Cup material) or music, designing or drawing, let the thousand flowers bloom. Move them up the chain of values, and not the chain of command (do you want to wage war forever? or else, why do we still behave in cold-war fashion?).

With inter-connectedness, mobile platform and dropbox, kids should be set free to pursue and optimize their lot in life. A nation whose policy is to blossom its young is the nation of the future. Take Israel, Ireland and India. What do they have in common? A national strategy and focus on IT talent infra-structure.

I hope someday you’ll join us. And I don’t think I am the only one.

Friendship and Fraternity

At work or at home, we relate to a network of people e.g. parents, siblings, neighbors and co-workers.

Now, on top of that, we got our online reputation to build and keep up. It’s the new currency. Trust and transparency.

Amazon and Facebook model are built on that. Delivering what we are promised, on time and every time.

On Social, we live the illusion of grandeur, having connected with many virtual friends, but having no real and close friends.

The key lies in your emotional intelligence and empathy.

Judge not.

The passing-away of my parents left a vacuum hard to fill. Now, I am like Eric Carmen “All by myself” or  Kazuo Ishiguro‘s “When we were orphans“.

I realize I lost more than a set of parents. I lost my two best friends. Friends who cheer me up when I am down. Talk me down when I was way over my head.

You can’t get that online, or ordering it on Amazon.

Then there were friends at work. All of the sudden, when you are out of work, you lost pension and insurance. You lost a set of friends.

Each of us moved on. Some to better positions. Others worse

But the pain remains: we will never get back together, like the Beatles.

Women problems at work are now a popular conversation with Sheryl Sandberg‘s “Lean in”.

But when one is out of work, nobody sings “Stand by me”.

Or, “That’s what friends are for”.

So we keep connecting, liking and commenting.

TED keeps coming up with cerebral lectures to motivate us. Bill Gates with new products that save the world.

But deep down, we all know that people are hurt by this economy. The pain and avoidance of pain take on subtle forms: alcoholism, passive-aggressive behavior and withdrawal.

In other words, what happened out there finally affects what’s in here.

By severing our lifeline, those intangible values of friendship and fraternity, the powers that be have failed to calculate and factor in those hidden costs. That which injures people, set them back and de-motivating. Smart people have moved on to better things taking a page from a different playbook. But those of us who thrive in togetherness and inter-connectedness can never stay whole. Something is missing. Somebody is not showing up at the Thanksgiving table. Then those defensive mechanisms kick in, to explain away someone’s absence e.g. demonizing the person, writing them off as “weird” or “mal-adjusted”. Yes, nature favors those who are the fittest. Wait until nature calls on you.

Meanwhile, I feel like tripping over on some neural minefield. I know we are not dispensable like yesterday’s version of Nokia. But somehow, the hidden costs of industrialization e.g. planned obsolescence and disposable society, have taken a toll on all of us. Starting with some line items on Excel down to our co-workers, then friends and families. It’s easy to connect with thousand friends on Facebook than talking to your parents who know you better than anyone else. I envy those who can “bounce it off” their parents on choices for a career or a mate. It’s necessary and it’s human. We pass on our DNA and our stored experience. As Viktor Frankl puts it ” they can take away my body, but not me who resides in this body”. Our genes pass on, but while we “do time”, we cherish those encounters and engagement with friends. Just a few laughs. Passing the time and not judgment. Seeing the world as if we were they.

I miss my parents this Thanksgiving. They were my best friends who passed on the appreciation for poems and patience with people.

I didn’t realize then, that I was born into a fraternity, where friends cared. That’s what they are for, in good times and bad times.

What’s your tale? Where will you be this Thanksgiving? In it’s origin, it’s a simple meal of wild turkey among early settlers and native American. Friendship was fostered and trust built. A nation was born and decisions were made. Gut check and gut call. True-North alignment to create and grow a nation where all men (fraternity) are born to pursue happiness among them (friendship).

All by ourselves

In the 70’s, the Me decade, we heard “All by myself” a lot on the radio.

Now, it’s the age of collaboration. All by ourselves.

Whiteboarding, synergy and M&A.

Nokia, Sony and Dell. All are taking the back seat.

Players we did not see coming are now in the field: Haier, Acer and Lenovo.

Users we did not know, can now afford buying our products e.g. I-phone 5s in Vietnam.

Dictators we thought couldn’t stand a chance, now sit in defiance of UN inspectors (Syria).

All by ourselves: APEC and TPP. NATO and UN Security Council.

Multi-polar world. Multi-tasking organization and multi-party lock jam.

It’s not that we can’t find good leaders. We weren’t prepared and planned for today’s contingencies.

Obama, once an Editor of Harvard Law Journal, just wanted to consult Congress on the War Powers Act.

In doing so, he exhibits the best of Constitutional compliance, yet entangled in “what if” scenarios, and  missed out a chance to be a great world leader.

All by himself.

Now people are speculating about Gates returning to Microsoft.

Must be hard the second time around (it would be the equivalent of Tom Hanks in Big, asking his x girl friend to go back and do it again).

He can be a figure-head, presiding over a round table of talents snatched up from competitors since the year of 2000.

Bill Gates is not needed for his prescient. After all, he missed seeing the Internet the first time around.

He can however humbly play the collaborator and coordinator role.

All by ourselves.

Or he can shut the door, and sing his heart out, like Bridget Jones, “All by myself”, all the while, envying Steve Jobs, in life as in death. Can you imagine a book and a movie on Gates? I’d rather read and see one about his partner in Idea Man – the one and only Paul Allen, rehearsing with the Stones in his private world-class yacht. The Stones don’t do “All by myself”.

 

Positively positive

Same set of situation, variety of readings.

Rashomon effect.

In Vietnam, if you ran into a funeral, it’s luck.

Wow! Positively positive.

The deaths live on in the family, albeit high up on the altar.

Part of one another forever.

Unlike in the US, health care for all is health care for none (shut down).

Negatively negative.

Here in Vietnam, the recycle mentality is quite ingrained: even in the soaking rain, I saw a lady wearing rain gear, picking up a plastic bottle. Not sure how much she earns from the act, which Bill Gates once said he wouldn’t be bothered.

And those with legs cut off would ride their manual cart to sell lottery tickets.

Positively positive.

Those who won a lump sum often spent it all in one place.

Those who sell those tickets keep on with their daily grind.

Positive begets positive.

A butterfly flapping its wings. A dog “saying goodnight” (It’s a Wonderful World).

A stanza of Samba by the Santana.

Even Requiem by Mozart, written for his own funeral. All positive.

Or Steve Jobs and his I phone, I tunes and I pad.

Or Tom Clancy and his much-anticipated publication after his death.

George Harrison has a song called “What’s life” and “My sweet guitar gently weeps”.

Play it on your rainy day?

Positively positive.

Life will get you at your least suspected moment.

Up to you to spot that rainbow and the starfish.

Or succumb to the Rashomon Effect. When in doubt, stay positive. And not just positive, but positively positive.

 

 

 

 

The ball that travels North

Saw him at an Orange County club back in 1989. He was already rowdy and his parties disturbing to conservative neighbors.

And now, after all these years, shows up in North Korea, on a basketball diplomacy tour. Dennis Rodman, NBA defender. HBO’s VICE has done a surprising job of casting for sports diplomacy (Google x-CEO would be suitable for technology but not for sports diplomacy. Eric’s tour to North Korea reminded me of Bill Gates‘ visit to North Vietnam almost a decade ago). This is our 21st-century version of 1971 Ping-Pong diplomacy .

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/with-rodman-stunt-american-reality-tv-and-north-korean-propaganda-fuse/

Sports and technology. The bridge over river Kwai.

The ball, the basket and the score board.

The elation and adrenaline.

Some even bet a horse or the farm.

Something about the heat of the game; suspenseful – time is irrelevant when that last ball travels in mid-air (even when game is over according to the clock).

Players were playing God (defying gravity and chronology).

And fans, well, were fanatics.

Fascinating and unpredictable, when a black man (blonde hair) with tatoo and pierced ears treks his way far up North. Make sure he carry an autographed ball (preferably from his friend Michael). That would make for a second display.

Travel advisory! Don’t try to imitate Rodman, just like you would trying to make the basket.

It doesn’t work every time. That’s why they call names like Magic Johnson.

That’s why there was a whole line of Nike merchandise, private label.

The magic that sells, across the cultures and across the DMZ.

The last time I saw on-screen about the region, was when they shot our fictitious James Bond until there hardly were any snow left on the ground.

Go figure! Something in this world still manages to surprise us. And however long a shot, I couldn’t have thought the man across the same room back then, would some day be seen in a North Korean basket ball court. Now his OC neighbors would sit up and watch for sure, besides offering to watch his estate, free. Hope that happen! Magic and miracle: going long to get across. Defensive game!.

Madonna and child

Not the Seine in Paris. But Rach Nhieu Loc in Saigon. She wore a cone hat. Baby tanning in the morning sun, resting in her bosom. The other hand, she checked her messages from a mobile phone.

It’s  Thanksgiving in Vietnam. People  have a lot to be thankful for. It’s now ranked second on Happy Country Index (the US 25th on infrastructure).

Infrastructure and Index of Happiness. By all counts, the canal stings. But people as a whole are considered happy. Many would care less for the Mayan calendar and its doom prediction.

When it gets too hot, it rains. Nature idea of  a “smart” grid. GE is investing heavily in “industrial internet” (the way Bill Gates referred to in his “at the speed of thoughts”.)

People here move about at the speed of motorbikes. It barely rains and people are already in ponchos and helmets , zooming by non-stop. No delay, no second thought.

Moving forward. Day after day. Only the future. When school is out, kids pour out into the concrete sidewalks, like a disturbed  beehive.

High-margin items are on display, all mobile related (I phone casing, eye glasses and sun glasses, helmets of all stripes, pull-overs and book bags).

Students from the country side try hard to accommodate themselves off campus by working at odd jobs.

I found an eatery with decent meals. Sharing a round table with strangers: meat, rice, soup and iced tea.

French-style cafes are extremely popular, serving cafe-sua-da at all times of the day.

007 is shown here too, interlaced with Twilight.

I wonder if the life style depicted in those movies ignite young people’s aspiration.  The Twilight cast, red-eye aside, all look perfect when they don’t go “hunting”.

Books are confined in a dozen outlets, scattered around the city, still priced themselves out of reach of the average wage earner.

The publisher I am in talk with has a branch office behind a huge pagoda, which is located across from Vietnam’s famous Vinh Nghiem pagoda. So, it’s not just KFC and Burger King who stake out prime locations. Religious outfits do so as well.

Meanwhile, the population understands health and fitness, how they relate to happiness. A nation ranked second after only Costa Rica in Happiness can surely connect the dots.

Their diet is healthy and their movement swift.

It starts early in the morning and early in life.

I saw the evidence this morning. Mother and child. Sun bathing.

Texting and tanning.

All contribute to the formula of healthiness besides discarded Vinamilk pouches on the street.

Perhaps technology has contributed much to Vietnam’s progress. Today, if you found a bicycle moving about, it’s a rare sight.  You can’t reverse history (especially in China, where automobiles are now as common as bicycles three decades ago).

You can only move forward with industrialization.

You read these lines. You know I am at an internet cafe next to my cafe-sua-da.

I do have something to be thankful for. I found a high-speed internet location.

Your story

During the 60’s, when computers were too limited for personal use, Andy Warhol had already predicted that in the future (which is NOW) each of us would have 15 minutes of fame (just like his signature Campbell soup ).

Naturally, he couldn’t have predicted the rise of social media  which upend traditional broadcast media, turning it around from one-to-many (old) to many-to-many (new) forever and free (Cloud computing + mobile + social media).

Unrestricted and unleashed i.e. texting while driving (we have yet come up with an acronym similar to DUI).

We “Like”.  We “tag”. We “tweet”. Yahoo now bets big on Mobile.

We prepare to lay ourselves exposed: photos (even pictures when we were babies), home-recorded songs and secret sauce.

We learn the art of filmography and biography e.g. story board and story line, scripting and screen playing (Youtube).

We share lessons on sewing and  selling.

It’s quite an open world and open society.

It used to be that the only time someone asked “tell us about yourself” was at a job interview.

Now, we tell them about ourselves even when not asked. “They” here means the World Wide Web:

Facebook, Google + and more.

A narrative was supposed to have a beginning, middle and end. Since we keep discovering and reinventing ourselves, our personal narrative evolves. Every day, we put on make-ups off line and  make-over on line. Some even called this “the start-up of you”.

The more interaction on-line, the more detailed our social graph, the richer our narrative. Fresh content generates higher Search Engine Optimization. This process also creates Digital Addicts or DigitAl-holics  who cross-comment  and follow each other. A band of brothers, only more inclusive and extensive (coincides with austerity).

This domain used to be exclusive for professionals e.g. product improvement and placement now laid bare for all (design your T-shirt contest etc…).

Now, people are the product (sold to advertisers). Their tweet or post could go viral, to the tune of a million hits.

Self-branding.

Self-aggrandizement is in. Self-effacing is out.

The modesty of Asian mystique faces serious challenges, perhaps more so than last century’s cultural invasion of the West e.g. China and Japan with men eventually do away with braided hair or Samurai tradition. This time around, the invasion is technology-enabled, a spontaneous explosion of personal freedom and expression second to none (including the 60’s Flower Power. This time, it’s trans-cultural and trans-continental in nature.)

As a result, we need to put up personal “firewalls” to protect our privacy and safeguard our brand.

To trade ourselves up. Tier-One (as in Premium LinkedIn accounts etc..).

Sort of like LV who refused to offshore the manufacturing of its handbags. Planned scarcity.

We first expand, then contract our circle over time.

This retrenching was mentioned in The Tipping Point (maximum 120 in your circle to have a meaningful conversation and community).

In the early days of Social Media,, we enjoyed new-toy stage (friending everyone).

Then Google + came out. By then, we became social-media fatigue.

Once  you lost that first-mover’s advantage, it’s hard to play catch-up,

Good luck yahoo, with revamping.

Yahoo was late in Search, and Social.

I wonder whatever else it could do to innovate and leapfrog competition. Perhaps with the yCloud? or Ymobile.

Meanwhile, we still want to find new ways to connect, to share and to show off.

We are members of a digital country club, where strangers suddenly become intimate i.e. know more about our personal stories, or at least, more quickly, than family members . These are our intimate strangers.

So, if you share, learn to show and tell properly. Learn the 2-minute summary like our presidential candidates just did tonight. Tell them what you are all about, your hopes, fears and dreams, all scripted and rehearsed (elevator speech). And maybe, someone out there, can identify with your vulnerability, your shortcomings and your humanity. Maybe they will endorse you, adopt you as family member, and you then become  “famous” for 15 minutes. Warhol would have never guessed someday (today) we would be showing off our secret sauce, while he, could only photocopy the (Campbell) Soup he touted as arts.

je pense

Have you ever looked back at those goals you had set right out of college?

Marriage? Career? Health?

Then and Now. Perhaps they still remain the same or in reverse order.

No one set out with a goal of multiple marriages.

Or multiple careers.

Yet it has happened, taken most of us by surprise. On a macro scale, the same speed of change has occurred,  right after a State Visit of Chinese Leaders to a Texas range ( Deng wearing a cowboy hat), then the Soviet Leader advertised for Pizza Hut, sitting in the back of a limousine.

Bang! No more Cold War. Only hot food.

Berlin Walls down. Firewalls up.  Mainframe on Main Street, albeit smaller and smarter.

Our expectations have gone through multiple adjustments: fast food and fast divorce, financing and financial rescue (individual and institutional level; fiscal cliff?)

Nuclear families melt down, just as nuclear reactors did (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima).

Neil Young now grows old (Old Man Looks at my Life…) but Bob Seger is Still The Same.

Yoko Ono exhibits  John Lennon’s Art Works, instead of hers.

So we adapted. Bob Dylan said we always reinvented the past, because the Present and Future are both unknown.

Shirley Maclaine would vehemently disagree. She went all the way, claiming to have married with the Roman Emperor himself, albeit in his  reincarnated version as a Swedish prime minister.

What do I make of all these forward/backward worldviews? I have been told to keep my head down (slurping my cup-a-noodle?). Don’t think much. Then I heard the music “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”.

Then I start being futuristic: electric vehicles, solar energy and stem cells.

Those unknowns are fascinating. They bring new designs to auto and home building industries. They bring new jobs.

New hope.

America in the late 50’s had its mojo.

For those who are not afraid to set high goals, beyond just marriage, career and health, the future belongs to them.

Stay hungry, stay foolish. Think different. Je pense. Rodin’s statue of the Thinker could use some imagination ( sitting on a newly designed toilet seat, for instance)

Bill Gates is trying to do just that. Now, he starts to pick up from his friend Steve Jobs, some diversion thinking. The future belongs to those who are not completely satisfied with what now exists. Contentment or progress? Keep your head down or look up to the stars? Busy with Moon walk (Michael Jackson) or Mars Rover?

Your choice. I was just thinking out loud. It would be nice to have you join us. Imagine. And the world will be one.