Tag: Cable television

Learning as motivator

From papyrus to paper, from microfiche to microphone, we use technology for knowledge transfer.

Learning is a great motivator. Once started it never stops (in my death-bed, I probably still ask the attending nurse what all those charts mean, and why not this and that).

Don’t believe in learning curve (as if once you got over it, you own it. There will always be pace learning i.e. know, forget, know again as if for the first time).

Politicians on their first term barely learn how to get back from the underground of the Capitol or stay out of SE part of town (I heard it is now quite gentrified).

Coursera has been a great success. It harnesses technology to extend learning to the mass. Technology as slaves, not masters.

Lift them up, not put them down. I enjoy reading about the Indian IT and call center folks enjoy their night out at a disco, Chinese tourists flocking the streets of Paris or Vietnamese students coming to CAL State. Let them come. With traveling comes learning. With learning people are more open-minded.

Here in Vietnam, cable TV shows Hollywood car chase, guns blazing etc… With exposure  comes the exercise of choices.

Tolstoy doesn’t believe in true freedom of choice (free will vs predestination).

Still, the urge to learn, to discover, to connect and to advance one’s self is innate

The only difference between acquiring information online vs at Ivy League institutions is the socialization of knowledge. Upper-class kids would meet and marry (imperial alliance model) one another, hence perpetuating the ruling class.

But in those far-away lands (Timbuktu), with internet, who can stop a genius from acquiring information about protons, neutrons and electrons. Physics is physics. International grad students might stick out like a sore thumb given their speech and dress code (formal).

I saw kids in the Mekong Delta riding bikes, then crossing a river on ferry to get to school. And that’s on a sunny day. When it rains, I don’t see how they can get to school in dry uniforms (one heart-broken story last year. A boat full of students sunk and students never made it to school).

Learning as motivator.

Then, shoes and broadband. Thomas Friedman, author of the World is Flat, had similar ideas in the NYT today.

Learning as motivator.

The things they carry. Turn those swords into plowshares.

Angel of Death into Angel of Learning, Agent Orange into Agent of Change.

Broadband for rural, broadband against ruin.

Nobody can stop a man from learning. Not even in the confine of a prison.

Senator McCain was detained for a while in Hanoi Hilton. He now sits on Senate committees. Tell me he did not learn a thing or two while being detained.

Learning takes many forms and takes place when least  expected (even from the bottom).

To learn one must first be humble and teachable. One must be motivated even on a ferry-boat or one’s death-bed.

Web and Cable experience

In the early days of the Web,  I asked my friend what he did online.

The answer: ” I just browse from one magazine to the next (static), and listen to ethnic radio channels “.

This was pre-YouTube era.

We have spent an enormous amount of time curating content that is put out there: radio signals, spam mail, junk mail, DMs (Direct Messages), mobile spam, cable programs and channel surfing.

Clearly, whoever can invent a multi-platform  TiVo-like device will rule.

From Death of Distance to Death of Device (cloud computing and

“thin client” booths).

Of course, the counter argument will be, “but it ‘s the Googlization of everything” (including restaurant review and flight search).

The filter bubble! (seeing and hearing  only what we want to see and hear).

Forever “being there” inside an echo chamber, without a specter of  contesting or challenging view  points.

Can’t handle the truth, in my time or in your time.

Sink or swim in a digital deluge (the computer revolution has been diffused to the mass via trial-and-error). At least, before Cable, we got the big Three networks and a mass media audience for  Super Bowl, the Evening News and the Oscars.

Now, like my friend said, “just browse, from one paper to the next, and listen to one station after another”.

Quantity trumps quality.

Television finally faces serious competition from online media.

ABC World News got a new boss while Yahoo is looking for one (as of this edit, M Mayer is now a CEO).

Disney Channel replaces its CEO, while BoA is contemplating the same. James Carville advised the President to look for a new team.

Reshuffling the deck.

Rearranging our priorities (as new entrants alter existing choice architecture).

24/7 News cycle covering candidates recycled – Romney.

Financial pushes short sales,  hence, forces flash crash.

Airplanes keep pushing the limits. Hence, flight crash (Reno, then W VA).

NASCAR and NASDAQ always pushes the bleeding edge, the former claimed a few lives in Daytona, while the later crushed many dreams.

When it comes to choice, we have only a few : capital, land and labor.

With Web and Cable, we got more access (Le Monde anyone?).

In Russia, they long for a return of the Soviet command and control style. At least, they got bread, albeit a long wait.

In short, freedom is frightening. Can’t count on that same Wikipedia page a few months from now.

Dynamic web.

When I bought the coffee-table book entitled “Knowledge”, I found that’s  printed in China.

Western Civilization, printed and shipped from China.

And I know before long, they won’t even print the revised version there. It will be online. For my friend to browse and sneak peek.

Amazon’s “puppy-dog” sales “Search inside the book” to “publish and read the entire content”. Penny talk extends from wireline to wireless phone, then onto Skype for free.

Too much democratizing of technology, and not enough in analog spheres (food, fuel, clothing and shelter) where scarcity still rules.

Steve Jobs’ is credited with saving the music industry (99 cent song).

The next century belongs to folks who can monetize and monopolize attention, influence and customer experience.

Gone were the days when companies could  just throw a bunch of channels or web pages at people, and hope it will stick (shotgun approach). Maslow says it best, “first survival and eventually self-actualising“. Using this need pyramid as framework,  we can see that we are still at the survival stage (of the data deluge).

But years from now, we will develop the capacity to filter and fashion the Web in our own image (hybrid between buffet style and a-la-carte). Like the proverbial Russian bread line, all it takes is the waiting (for more  mobile apps).  And my friend, the one I asked in the early days of Internet, the most patient person I have ever met, doesn’t mind waiting. Le Huffington Post, anyone?.