Tag: BRIC

Inertia and urge

In business parlance, we call them “entrenchment” and “creative destruction”. Find a niche, dig in. By the time you crossed “valley of death”, someone had already elbowed in to eat your lunch.

As Venture Capitalists scour the globe looking for “the” deal, they find new energy and risk-taking in places like Rwanda, Indonesia and Israel, the new “BRICS“. Emerged out of the ash of the Great Recession, these countries offer a unique proposition: invest in us for we got talent, nerve and market.

Since history can only be understood backward and not forward (a need for spices and to dispel “Earth-is-square” theory drove Columbus to stumble upon America), we can’t manufacture another version of post WWII American Dream. Whatever shape it will take, post-recession wise, one will likely find “gems” in the most unlikely places (GE and MSN in India, or “frankenfish” farmed in China bio-lab).

After reading Sarah Lacy‘s book about start-ups in emerging countries (Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky), I felt as if “Independence Day” were celebrated else where, and not in the US.

Web eco-sphere and capital flow (as in the case of hyper-Brazil) are tilted to smaller countries: lower barriers to entry, greater access to broadband and micro-funding.

To jump-start a project, one needs more than an urge to get rich. In most cases illustrated in the book, it has a cause or personal narrative to underline the efforts. Innovator’s dilemma implies a balancing act between preserving the status quo and feeding the creative urge.

If not, someone else will and will do you in.

It’s called Progress. It’s called evolution. Climbing the pyramid of need and innovation. Unplug the respirator and move into the “incubator”. I have lived on both sides of the world, one more risk-taking, and the other,  safety. It’s as if we have reached a plateau in “subduing the Earth”. Columbus, welcome to America, now go home. Take another lesson in adventure and entrepreneurship elsewhere. Maybe we haven’t failed enough. But it’s time to finish the race. Inertia and urge. Let the urge overtake the inertia.

What’s eating the man up inside

Instead of more career choices, he now faces 20 choices of jeans.

People are debating about a gender-free society (painting nail polish on his son’s toes).

When he finally got his tie collection under control, they went “business casual” on him (Steve Ballmer couldn’t cope with this).

Even though it says “Facebook”, most people just post a long-shot photo of themselves.

The financial crisis is now a film treatment i.e. we can now objectify the pain with some distance in between since. Money crisis, job crisis, health crisis, environmental crisis, security crisis and even marital crisis.

That’s what’s eating the man up inside.

Still he rises to the occasion. He is after all our 21st-century man. Armed with I-pod and I-pad, he can be a Spartan against the invading army of machines (see my other blog on “machine and me”).

He can text, chew gum and walk at the same time.

He shows up at the gym at first light.

Talks to no one in particular (men are not chatty, although they don’t mind leaving you a voice mail).

He is the opposite of Barbara Streisand (in a Star is Born). He wants to conquer, but frustrated because the Colosseum is now packed with competition: foreigners inshore and BRICS that chip away business, machines with intelligent softwares that cut down work load, material sciences that lessen the heavy lifting, women in NFL, ESPN, NASCAR, Air Force commanding (Libya), and worst of, advances in bio-med which prolong life (he can’t die, just get eaten up inside).

So, the rise of the rest (no offense, but I can’t help noticing Indian faces on TV, from PBS to CNN). There are discussions about “outsourcing blog”, a logical extension of what is digitized can be outsourced.

Obama, during his state visit to Britain, even commented on the rise of China and India. Something to do with “America leadership is now” (instead of passe).

Luckily, there is a phenomenon called “middle-income trap”, which kept countries like Malaysia and Thailand at bay, for a while.

What’s eating up the man inside? He hit the ceiling. Too soon and too fast (at least previous generation of boomers got a good run, starting from 1950 until now). He couldn’t cope with role reversal ( Palin’s husband Todd holding the baby at press conference to denounce rumors of cheating “look, he has been home watching the kids all along).

So our man goes target-shooting. At least, it gives him something/someone to focus on.

The rest, the rise of the rest, are hard to pin down.

He can’t quite put his finger on it. The phenomenon is once called Future Shock is here now.

It’s like Bush hearing the news on 9/11 morning, in a state of shock and stillness in that Elementary classroom (incidentally, he got another shock when a recent ball player followed an out-of-bound ball to get within inches).

The doctor can’t tell what’s eating the man up inside. He wants more tests done.

He wants to put on the white glove. More trips to the pharmacy. More waiting. Agitating. That’s what eating the man up inside. He is inherently impatient. The business of “the beginning of the end” sidelines him (CIA officers tend to die within their first year of retirement).

Like America, our man wants action, heroism, around the clock (24-hours like Jack Bauer).

Unfortunately, the rules have changed. It’s time for drones not drills, nation building not “terminating”. He can’t “be back”. He has to father one more. He can’t even be put and stay in jail. The Supreme Court says “No”, you can’t double up prisoners. Triple up on the outside is their business. But not inside.

So the unwanted prisoners in California got off early and easy (whoops, per computer errors). All dressed up, and no place to go.

21-century man scratches his head. He doesn’t understand the rationale behind 20 choices of jeans, while there are only a few career choices (being a nurse or a teacher has traditionally fallen under the domains of female and gay, while construction of new home or soldiering are both winding down). Maybe he should start painting his toe nails. And accept the fact that we are moving toward a gender-free society. Eat, pray and love. Text, chew gum and walk. 21st-century walking man walks on by.

The road most traveled

Fireplace (fake or real), Christmas tree (fake or real) and toy boxes (stuffed or life-sized), all

put together to create a Hollywood home version of  White Christmas, the illusion that we are OK and what-and-how-much we charged at the registers won’t haunt us in late January.

In America, the road most traveled has been to the retail outlets. I live near a Costco.

And by sheer size of traffic leading to the store, I can read the health of the economy. When it comes to the economy, I am a bush man, unable to verify “supply side” from “trickle-down” economy.

There is a PBS documentary showing Americans in Paris during the 20’s.

Some say they came because of the Prohibition at home. Others say it was because the War exposed these young men to a wider (and wilder) world.

Whatever the case may be, more Americans have stayed home to watch others arriving at their shores  since WW II. Then, the latest census shows a decline in new arrivals.

Gas price increases not because of increased consumption in the US, but because of BRIC‘s nations.

For the first time, Americans feel the pinch not caused by domestic factors. Yes, we have been blamed for over consumption that brought up the level of carbon emission. But, lately, carbon emission have caused by high rises in Dubai and Eastern China.

Cars have been downsized in the US (Fiesta, forever), and refrigerators for dorm room from China are selling like hot cakes. I keep seeing people buying bikes at Wal-Mart.

Baby-boomer’s life-style trend. But the solution is still the same: shopping for items, large or small.

When we prepare for emergencies like Y2K, we went shopping. When we are celebrating Christmas, we go shopping.

When the economy is down, or right after 9/11, the President called on all Americans to go shopping. Robert Frost wouldn’t comment on the current state of affairs, since he must be the only one who took the road less traveled.

His other most quoted line “fence makes good neighbors”. Solitude and austerity don’t cut it . It’s a nation favors the road most traveled. When the road took an unfavorable turn, the youth went somewhere else. Twice in recent memories, they either went to Paris (Prohibition period) or Canada (during the Vietnam era) in protest.

Can you imagine everywhere you go, you run into the same people (let’s say, seeing all your friends in Ha Long Bay over Tet).  Or worst, at Costco while waiting in line paying for fake trees, fake boxes and fake firewood.

“Two roads diverged in a wood…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” The other, most traveled, has a huge billboard which urges you to “shop for things you don’t need, with the money you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like”.

 

South-South emergence

A Vietnamese film director, a Japanese novelist, a Beatles title (which I read the Vietnamese translation bought in Hanoi)= Norwegian Wood.

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/norwegian-wood-film-a-labour-of-love

Indian telecom companies bought out Middle Eastern counterparts to target mobile market in Africa.

China beefs up its investment in construction and rare earth mining in S America, Australia and Africa.

These are examples of South-South trading and emerging opportunities.

BRIC by BRIC, these strategic moves will soon create a new Silk Road.

PBS and Christian Science Monitor are covering Cuba as it slowly reopened.

You saw the test scores (Math and Science from Shanghai).  Young people are asserting themselves and will go the distance, starting with online.

I am glad to see film makers encounter less barrier to entry. It started with “the Blair Witch project” and took off from there.

CNN dared to cover the first Iraq war live   Now, we get to see almost everything live via cable TV.

The rise of Pro-Ams i.e. wikipedia and wikileak.

(we forgot what’s like to see protests on the street, now that they have moved on-screen).

Like Hip Hop moves from street to stage, South-South movement will bring us  new radical ideas (such as mobile banking, low-cost car and peer-2-peer lending).

I can’t wait to see Norwegian Wood. To many who are underrepresented, having a story told on the big screen (outside of Hollywood) feels like the dragon-tatoo girl finally kicked the hornet’s nest (Sundance Festival). Remember those brick phones which once belonged only to Sunset boulevard producers (early adopters)? South-South is David’s turn at his sling shot. And this time, it started with trade and is spilling over to arts.

I heard it took a while for Haruki Murukami to agree to this mise-en-scene. Wonder who he would choose to bring 1Q84 to the big screen.

 

Time to take stock

So this is Christmas, what have you done? Year-end review and future projection.

Cloud strategy? Hiring and firing decision? Productivity squeeze and cost cutting? (female shoppers said they planned to spend 1% less as compared to last year).

Time to take stock, at individual and institutional level.

New calendar.

Hollywood is going to Detroit (greener pasture).

And the Ark finally found its home in Kentucky (Noah or Colonel Sanders, your choice).

Fund raisers are targeting public buildings and venues (Verizon stadium etc….).

There will emerge new industries (cloud system integrator , google glasses, google cars, google scanners ….).

Thanks to Social Media, I watch more of YouTube .

Meanwhile, not a day goes by without us seeing something coming out of China (reverse engineering Russian weaponry, Shanghai Math and Science champions, huge increase in its Africa’s raw materials and South-South global strategy.)

When John Lennon left us “standing here”, he couldn’t have seen the “long winding road” ahead. 30 years was a long time. Enough to turn BRIC countries to where they are today. “Imagine” the world 30 years from now.

We are so used to annual review, not decades in review:

(war is still raging on because men are still with that strand of evil –  albeit the Genome project could account for most of human DNA) “So this is Christmas, What have you done?”

Because of Lennon’s commemoration, 1980 feels like just last year.

In taking out an icon, the fame hitchhiker inadvertently immortalized his victim.

In her NYT piece , Yoko wrote “ours – our family – was one of giggling, teenager-like”. She mentioned laughter but I read it through a veil of tears.

J.L. would have been 70. Yet he still is “on the cover of the Rolling Stone“, just as a line in a song. You just never know. To musicians and artists (Lennon and Van Gogh) taking stock goes beyond the grave. In fact, it’s the long tail of a winding road.

 

message in the bottle

Cast away. Sending an SOS. an SMS. I hope that someone will get my message.

We are born to connect (our belly button testifies to this) with nature and others.

Yet marketers are telling us that in Retirement Ville, cruise ship (with sauna sound that reminds us of incubator) and virtual existence can substitute for the real thing.

In Japan, a generation grows up with comic characters and robots ( Miku, a 3-D virtual rock star got

her star treatment not unlike The Beatles).

Children in the West and BRIC nations will follow suit with what Neil Postman coins “amusing ourselves to death”.

If you look at the statistics on how we spend our time, TV and the Web are at third spot after sleep and work.

We in mail, g-mail, dropbox, chat, text, store, tweet, Like, blog, comment, delete spam, mass e mail etc….

As of this edit, Salesforce is buying another cloud-based marketing company at the tune of 2+ Billion.

To be social. To connect. To be human. It will be the first time in our human history that one can connect more than the optimal 120 (The Tipping Point).  This revolutionary change is the most significant since the 60’s.

Music is to be shared (Woodstock), the Earth is to be shared (Whole Earth Catalog), ideas are to be shared (Google), courses are to be shared (Coursera) and ride is to be shared (San Francisco). It’s not by mistake that San Francisco and adjacent Silicon Valley come out ahead in thought leadership.

It’s been a while since campus coffee-house (our 70’s version of karaoke, except you have to bring your own guitar).

Now we got Facebook to share a clip (ironically from Youtube, which is own by rival Google), a photo or an article.

All of a sudden, it’s like play time, share time. Everyone is an artist i.e. to let the world know we once exist.

Adults, retirees, and yes, even x’s, “friending” each other. Amusing Ourselves to Death.

The Genie is finally out of the bottle.

I send an SOS to the world…….I hope that someone, I hope that someone, read my message in the bottle…….

Human ingenuity

When you see population growth which doesn’t equate with starvation, it’s a testimony to our human ingenuity.

The US has less than 2 percent of its labor force in agriculture, yet no one is without a hamburger (even when it’s thrown out by McDonald).

From Malthus to Moore, we have moved up the value chain.

The race to dominate mobile application is driving companies and start-ups to faster deploying wireless devices and software application.

No more excuses, such as  “let me get back to the office”, since office is now mobile (computer and car cultures converged).

Tablets used to be carried around by UPS men.

Then car rental companies used wireless receipt printers in their return parking lot.

And now, I Pad for everyone, everywhere.

Bio tech century ushers in longer life expectancy (hint, longer customer lifetime value).

Clever marketers would think like a customer, visualize not just today, but tomorrow as well.

Engineering has made its mark. The next century belongs to international marketers who can trade without borders.

Not just Multi -National Companies (MNC), but localized product and market development for domestic consumption (BRIC and CIVETS).

(AIG spins off its Japan branch, or Macy in Atlanta has more hat selections).

We learn more about each other, strength and weakness (Kissinger said, ” we did it to ourselves” in retrospect about the war in Vietnam).

So we learn our lessons and move on. Human ingenuity is not without pain. In fact, pain is a prerequisite.

As long as we learn from our mistakes, and factor them into future plan. The sub – prime experience for instance. It should have been limited  to a lesser share of the pie (but loan pushers wouldn’t settle for those otherwise suffice non-sub prime packages. Up-sell til we melt).

Or as President Carter kept saying, ” I should have factored in one more helicopter” – when referring to the debacle of hostage rescue attempt during his last year in office.

We made mistakes. But great men admit them, learn from them, and work them into the equation. In sales, we call it the funnel. We anticipated the many NO’s coming our way. This, we did it unto ourselves i.e. rejection and objection. Part of the job. Part of growing pain. Part of tapping into the well of human ingenuity.

As of this edit, David Brook of the NYT has a piece on “the Humanist Vocation”. Huffington Post has a piece about the anniversary of the Pentagon Papers. All learned lessons. Work that into future Syria strategy. Work that into the next app. Stop not learning and growing.

From BRIC to VIC

http://www.ukti.gov.uk/de_de/uktihome/pressRelease/117708.html?null

Among the top findings from an UK investment survey (Economist Survey Unit – above), Vietnam, India and China (VIC) are the top three to watch. Other findings by HSBC came up with CIVETs (remember BRIC?): Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and S Africa as stable political markets (as of this edit, you can take out Egypt).

Vietnam itself has held top spot three years in the row (ending in 2010).  It’s GDP growth has teetered above 6 percent, despite the Global Recession we all know too well.

While developed countries move toward a post-consumerism stage, Vietnam barely starts shopping (the size of its supermarket shopping carts says it all – half the size of the likes in Walmart and Costco).

76% over 23%  of  surveyed companies say they plan to adjust (localizing) their product offerings to domestic market as opposed to just offshoring for cost-saving .

IT outsourcing stands just below construction, tourism and retail growth in Vietnam. Thus, HP took notice (it is obtaining a license to invest 18 million dollars in a Quang Trung software park company). Samsung in Bac Ninh just passed its $1 B mark of handset manufacturing and exporting to other countries. Hon Hai also chipped in another $ 5 Billion.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4515280

Meanwhile, after years of savings, Chinese are on a buying spree for London properties, the same way the Japanese did in Los Angeles back in the 80’s (remember Michael Douglas in Rising Sun?).

Nikita, the TV show, now casts a Vietnamese-Euro actress with sharp shooting precision (to make a case for Euro-Asian mash).

Apple I- phones are selling well in Vietnam.

It has been obvious that China and India are doing well, manufacturing and service respectively.

Vietnam tries to fit the bill as a CI+1 destination, a low-wage labor market despite its own infrastructure problem.

(a taxi stuck head down in a city pot hole during a recent storm).  Sure, Vietnam has an undeniably long history (1000 years Hanoi), but only one future: it will have to move quickly to reverse brain drain, and beef up its infrastructure to accommodate growth. The higher the FDI inflow, the higher the expectations.

Due to easy loan, Shanghai office buildings faced low occupancy rates.  With increased urbanization comes other consequences.

London urban influx in the 19th century taught us a lot (plague and crime). And the new UK investors’ survey tells cautionary tales about a new century, a new market without improving on old business practices (opium anyone). If so, the top ten on the list will have to fight like gladiators, while the King enjoys his grapes and wine.

I am with sword in hand, ready. Gotta to follow the money.

Name Change

It costs about $800 to change one’s name here in the US e.g. on social security , driver’s license and passport.

One might prefer something that has global sounding: Villa, Gaga, Shakira.

Between YouTube, Facebook and World Cup, we enjoy an unprecedented confluence of technology and globalization.

And the common denominators are football scores and music scores.

For a brief moment our world is united.

(this morning, at the gym, a stranger I was talking to couldn’t recall Argentina, who played opposite Brazil. Thanks to World Cup, we could strike small talks).

We kid ourselves into thinking that we will be forever young, and glorious .

These sport idols represent our aspiration i.e. fame and fortune. I know parents want what’s best for their children.

What they don’t know is the specifics on how their expectations fan out e.g. doctors, dentists etc.. (no one wants to dream their children grow up to be a secretary. It just happens that it is increasingly a less desirable occupation due to automation).

And as Friedman keeps reminding his children at night :”if you don’t get up early, and study hard, kids from China and India will take your jobs”.

They are already here, excelling in many aspects that involved a tool or an instrument (Yo-Yo, Lang Lang).

The elementary school I attended in Saigon was L’ecole Aurore. It’s been renamed twice, just to end up with its original translation “Rang Dong.”

Many of the French colonial street names aren’t that lucky

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/05/world/la-fg-vietnam-names-20100705

And life goes on in Shanghai, Saigon or Singapore. One street vendor FOB replaces another on that same spot.

Even banks change their names. Keep the sign shops busy. Call it unbranding or what not. Same script, different actors.

Isn’t it the same in Las Vegas, Sunset Boulevard and 42nd St! Like Friedman, I told my girls to study hard or else kids from BRIC nations will take their jobs.

They may even change their names to land an interviews. I named mine Aimy and Maily. That way, they can go back and forth between the Vietnamese world and the Anglo one. Hope they don’t spend $800 someday to switch to Gaga or Shakira. I prefer Paris if it comes to that . Might as well be bold!

Forced realities

“the Network Effect of Nations”.

Brazil, the “B” in BRIC, is on course to be number 5 by 2014 according to the Economist.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14845197&source=most_commented

So, it’s not just the International Olympic Committee which noticed Brazil Rising. Nor is it seen only as the  corn basket of the world (When I hear Brazil, immediately popped to mind is “energy”, long before the Ethanol craze). In fact, Brazil doesn’t rely solely on energy exports as Russia or Venezuela. It also caters to tourism, commercialism and world-class sports (in 2016).

With EU and Emerging economies out of the Recession, we will see Network Effect mesh of G-20 : more multi-lateral trading, traveling and telephoning.

One example. What does Banco De Chile have to do with Vietnam? Yet, it has a presence there, and tries to secure markets for its agricultural products (as if Vietnam were not agrarian enough). Nations crisscross exponentially.

The US Navy Commander is visiting his relatives (see Gatsby in China Beach).  President Carter is coming to build

houses  for the Mekong poor (Habitat for Humanity, an organization I support). And French Prime Minister is touring Hue (probably putting 2 and 2 together: Colonial past and Commercial present). And Meet Vietnam will feature Vietnam Minister of Education in San Francisco. And let’s not forget Obama visiting China, where his half-brother was launching a book, having stayed there and married local for quite some time. The Network Effect of Nations!

Technology and people are always ahead of the political process. Deng was seen wearing a cowboy hat when visiting Texas in the late 70’s ( He just reciprocated Nixon’s trip to China where 3000-course meal had been served) . “To get rich is glorious” . Subsequently, we heard similar echo on Wall Street in the 80’s: “Greed is good” .

Information flow used to go from North to South. Now, the global picture has completely changed.

No longer do we see a bi-polar world. And while changes are taking place on the global stage,  “groundswell” is detected online (kids joined in to play games, but pretty soon, will be glancing at headline news, and shopping for “early Black Friday” deals on peer’s recommendation. No wonder Dell cannot sit still, waiting to take “just-in-time” orders.

After all the shopping at the urging of President Bush right after 9/11, Americans are now penny-pinching.  So, it’s President Obama’s turn to give the same speech, this time, to the Chinese, with a BTW,  try our Made-in-USA stuff (SPAM?).

It’s tough to be a Recommender-In-Chief . Even the Vatican can’t seem to get a handle on the new Social media that seem to grow their flocks much faster than Christendom’s. So the Pope invites in the paupers, out of the dorm to the Dome for a  (face-2-face) chat. Where do you click? You mean one doesn’t have to sit down in front of a monitor? Mobile Apps?

At the Olympic in Rio, with a Smart phone, you won’t miss a single soccer score . Are you game? One will never know where the putt is going to be . And it makes the journey all the more exciting. Stay “eyes wide opened” for forced realities. The future doesn’t sleep: it is on steroid. No wonder Emerging economies, especially Brazil, seem to get out from under much more quickly than the rest. Fareed Zakarai coins this “the rise of the rest” in Post American World. He certainly has Brazil in mind.