Tag: China

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.

 

supply chain dilemma

First they outsourced to lower the cost of, let’s say, an I phone.

The guy (Chinese farm-to-factory worker) if not jumped out of the window from a Foxconn‘s dorm, wished he had because there was no way he could afford one. Even his counterparts in NYC had to get in line just to hand carry the same phone back to China for a profit.

Meanwhile, leaders are scratching their heads, trying to turn that same worker into a domestic consumer. So, he needs and wants a raise. Wage increases drive up production costs, making it less affordable for emerging domestic market.

Or, because of the innovator’s dilemma, product cycle, market adoption and planned obsolescence, consumers taste moves on to Galaxy etc…just as you adjusted your production strategy (Dell just-in-time, then went Retail, then went private).

It’s hard for young people in China and Vietnam not to want an I Phone. It’s harder to keep their wages down while aspiration is up. Meanwhile, the US needs jobs here at home. The same with European countries which can offer quality workmanship (even though for years, they haven’t had a decent manufacturing order to practice their skills ).

For IT outsourcing and cloud computing, it’s easy to “follow the sun”. But for manufacturing it is hard to pick up and move, then move back. Two trends seem to recently emerge in the US: resource-sharing (ride and facility), and reshoring.

A few workers jumped out of the window in China signals the beginning of many  to follow elsewhere.  Remember we live in an interconnected interdependent world where one-upmanship now spans the globe (Indian IT workers are seen partying just like counterparts in Silicon Valley during Happy Hour).

One CEO is nominated CEO of the Year (Netflix), two CEO’s going bankrupt (Blockbuster and MGM).

I got a Sixth Sense. I see dead people. The time, they are a’ changin.  The guy who hummed it (Bob Dylan) was featured in a WSJ article as slipping due to aging.

We got enough worries about the ever expanded and contracted cycles of long-tail product but short-term people.

Ford was quite correct to make the model T’s affordable to his workers (whose wages were quit high). That seemed to put the dilemma to rest in his time. Times, they are a changin, since Model T to I phone. Quite a gulf to cross from creators to consumers.

churning, down the river

The foreclosure process has still been at work, churning homes back on the market in CA or FL.

Behind the statistics are people bewildered and shattered.

As a nation and the world, we are faced with two choices:

– pretend it never happened, and rush out to shop

– acknowledge that it happened, and rush out to shop.

Kid Rock on American Music Award a few years back sang about his hometown Detroit.

Something about “bringing us to our knees”. I realize that technology and market , when in sync, offer us convenience and low costs. When collided, as in collateral obligation, forces us on our knees.

It makes you feel like you have just been eliminated from being America’s next top model.

Pack your bag, and leave the set. Now!

Do you have some place to go?

Of all the misfortunes  that beset this country e.g. Dot.com burst, 9/11, Katrina and the two wars, lower our confidence a bit: an Ireland with lost pride, China with deep pocket-book, and Russia asking, hey, dance anyone?

First thing first, Covey advises us. A nation, as a people, needs to learn good habits.

Focus on the most important and work everything from that core (rocks first, then pebbles into the jar).

We have put out big and small fires. That leaves us too exhausted to do what’s next and necessary. The rules of law, the checks and balance etc… help protect us from abuse, but not in the realm of economics.

When do we see you hungry and not feed you? Or without a roof over your head and take you in. Rolling down the river.

 

Kindness of strangers

Years ago, my roommate invited me over for Thanksgiving.

The ride from Penn State to Lancaster was a long but memorable one.

It’s predominantly Amish there. And I remember discussing with his Dad about
“Turning East” by Harvey Cox (the subject I took that summer).

Years have gone by. While Western consciousness has yet turned East, its consumption certainly has.

We are having China Head of State over for a visit while a few years ago, Nobel prize has been awarded to his jailed dissident.

I couldn’t even imagine the scenario myself over cranberry sauce and sweet potato back then.

The take away: season comes and season goes. But the kindness displayed to strangers at that table wasn’t going to fade away that easily. I read somewhere that PA was one of the States in the Union where people tend to stay put (less internal migration).

Harrisburg was having a hard time paying its bills.

I was there, wiring the tiny microphone on Governor Thornburgh to record an interview during the Three-Mile-Island crisis.

Harrisburg was where I first landed in America. Harrisburg was also my last stop upon graduation. My first few months there in the camp, I volunteered to go to court with unaccompanied minors, helping them as an interpreter. All of them

eventually got placed in suitable foster homes, and enjoyed many Thanksgiving dinners in Pennsylvania.

For me, just that one dinner in Amish country. It’s cold by my standard.

Autumn foliage struck me as picture perfect. And the aroma of the bird to be carved stuck with me for a long time.

My roommates went on to do great things (they were graduate students at the time)

such as professorship in Africa and Vermont.

Not once did they laugh at my remedial reading (I read “Catcher in the Rye” etc…. to make up for not attending high school here in the States).

That dinner filled me not only with everything a Lancaster farm had to offer, but also with a critical piece to understand America: the strength of a pilgrim community e.g. barn-raising party, stuck together through thick and thin, sharing gifts from the wild, a tradition brokered by the Native American. Latest studies on human motivation reveals what long been felt: we are most motivated when we seek to help others. The act of kindness might surprise both the giver and receiver.

I observe today that the drinking-water supplier put out front free water for passerby. This act of goodwill I am sure not will not be gone unnoticed. (in fact, lottery ticket vendors stop by every time to fetch a needed drink). Doing good and doing well.

The strength of a nation has always been measured by how it treats its weakest link. not the propaganda on the DoS website. That trip was one of my most memorable  pilgrims in America, of course, with Apple pie for desert.

The vase and the Beast

One is auctioned for 85 million (with tax and fee), while the other merged with Newsweek after it was sold for $1.00

After a lifetime of standardization and automation, something is still of value.

Nobody had appreciated Van Goh’s self-portrait or any of his pieces until after he was long gone.

Still, we want maximization, optimization and standardization, pre-reqs for an economy of scale.

What happened to innovation amidst of instead in the absence of chaos?

Google tried 20% time-off for employee’s personal and passionate projects.  May the best idea win.

Then, it resorted to salary increase. Money talks.

How do you quantify an idea, especially a break-through and disruptive one?

Sometimes a whole industry clusters around a breakthrough product e.g. Apple apps.

Why do we listen to music? Because it tapped in different parts of our neuron.

It resonates and brings us back to the time we first “connected” with that tune

(First time, I ever saw your face….).

Time and Life is tapping into this reservoir to urge you “to make that call” since operators are standing by in India to take your orders (Singers and Songwriters).

Something, in this case the vase, which had been tucked in the attic, now sees the light of day (and commands the highest auction price from a caller in China). You can imitate art and artifact, but that one piece testifies to uniqueness, rarity and antiquity.

No standardization, no automation, no reproduction. The only one. The Beauty.

Newsweek has a section called My Turn. That had been before blogging arrived.

Now, the Post, the Beast and Newsweek will join forces. Their turns to synergize and optimize (still can’t beat Huffington Post who also has to join forces with AOL – to leverage existing sales force).

Just don’t resort to standardize in this age of Page-ranking.

We honed in the efficiency model, and ended up missing the forest for the tree.

Luckily, we discovered something of a treasure in the attic, and rediscovered the meaning of value vs price.

I am sure for cheaper vase, the buyer from China could have walked down any street or gone straight to a local factory

where high production, low labor-costs and large profit return are norm. But then, it’s a Made-in-China vase.

I still read Newsweek, if it’s still published. And I wish its new Editor in Chief, Ms Tina Brown better luck this time around.

At least, there is only one Tina Brown, the Beauty who rules the Beast.

half-life happiness

The concept of half-life (radioactive) , if could be applied to soft sciences e.g. happiness, can go on to infinity.

In today’s term, it’s called austerity: scaled-down cars, DVD nights, and local trips.

During the Clinton years, we had a good run. The Japanese had theirs in the 80’s.

Now, it’s the Pacific Century.

Chinese students are enrolling in the States. As of this edit, President Obama and President Xi are having a summit.

(US News and World Reports should be of great resource to these folks who love to shop for brand-name degrees).

I am sure foreign students on American campuses will see all sorts of eye-popping scenes, such as at football games, or frat parties.

Had they been here during the late 60’s, they would have seen much more.

Then, comes senior-panic when recruiters are on campus to whisk away promising young stars (Google remains the number-one choice. For Chinese students who wish to return home after graduation, it’s Baidu).

In their tool bags, I hope these foreign students hone their debating skills, presentation skills and personal-branding skills.

I enjoy reading (in English) novels by mainland Chinese authors. But they are far and few in between.

And for now, I understood the Yale wisdom of long-term investing in foreign language departments, among them Vietnamese.

Who would have thought a major or minor in Chinese studies comes in very handy these days. (The mayor of Chicago saw this).

The MIT Sloan Chinese faculty was consulted on PBS News Hour, at panel discussion etc… In short, he is in demand

to navigate through the complexity of currency pecking, labor and political unrest, and income inequality which pervade today’s China.

And if the Chinese are to loosen their purses, Western style of advertising (Madison Avenue) will set up shop there to blast Pavlovian messages. Buy this, buy that, then you will  be happy.  Drink this, drink that, then you will be happy.

Consumerism just looks and finds new converts across the Pacific ocean, leaving behind its early “adopters” with half-life happiness (adjusted American Dream). American will shop less and save more. Chinese the opposite. Trade imbalance dealt with. Half-life happiness sure beats hopelessness . In crisis, opportunity (for the Chinese Dream to rise, then fall).

Here they come!

Chinese buyers, that is.

Not a bid for 76 gas station, or IBM hardware (now Lenovo).

A GM unit then Symentech.

On seeing David Stockman on TV. I thought I were back to the early 80’s. This time, just one just needs to replace the word Japanese, for Chinese (remember Michael Keaton and his gold fish?). Now, it’s Wolf Pack in Las Vegas, w/ Chow.

A 30-year cycle, deja vu.

Beijing is rolling out cars on mass. Then the Olympics. Then the Summit near the shooting.

Welcome to the Pacific Century, when personal income and saving are on the rise, this time, across the pond.

From the Olympics to the World Fair, from space to supercomputer, Beijing is flexing its muscle.

This time, we’d better get used to seeing our new competitor outside of traditional type casting i.e. China town, kung fu and acrobat.

When the Wall came down in Berlin, another stood stall in Beijing.

America needs a balance sheet. And the “For Sale” signs are up, for any buyer with cash. Chinese have saved up. Under the mattress. And this time, they go shopping. Cash or charge? Cash. Here they come again. Shallow the pride and give our customers the respect they deserve. It’s time for an American pragmatic approach to a pressing economic problem. Um coy, it’s thank you. Anything else you want to buy?

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.

 

Forced leisure

MSNBC  interviews a blogger from Good magazine on automation nation.

The take away: automation is moving beyond manufacturing sector (e.g. Google test drove an unmanned vehicle in California, or Italian researchers tested a driver-less van, from Italy to China) to service sectors, such as health care .

Japan has been deep into robotic technology, a national policy to appease conservatives who were anti- immigration, and democrats who caters to its aging population.

Today, China has the fastest computer in the world.

Translation: it can develop faster elevators, bullet trains, assembly lines and bottling lines, weather forecasting, medical tech, bio tech, clean tech and up-the-value-chain services.

In short, all things that compute.

I cannot envision 1.3 Billion Chinese forced to travel and spend their leisure time away from factories and industrial parks

(take a nap in IKEA showroom, anyone?)

Unlike Japanese companies which have off shored their work force to counter balance their unfavorable currency (as of this edit, its Central Bank refuses to print more stimulus money, resulted in Asia’s stock plunge), Chinese companies have moved factories away from coastal cities as far as  Africa for cost-cutting.

Automation and offshoring  full impact will ease wage pressures and labor unrest e.g. Foxconn workers’ suicide.

It’s a Detroit way to fix Union challenge. First, they shifted manufacturing jobs South of the border, then, overseas. Then, service jobs were off shored as well. Now, even call centers in India’s major cities got further outsourced to secondary cities to shave off costs, with automation as first solution.

(I was just interrupted by a Spanish-speaking automated voice pitch from a retailer, probably urging me to rush to early Black Friday). First get someone else to do the job elsewhere. Then the machine. Then the customers.

Toffler was so prescient in observing trends such as pro-sumerism (the consumers contribute to the process of making the product e.g. stuff your own stuff animal, upload your Facebook data) and outsourcing. Kurzweil has been a thought leader in predicting that “Singularity is near“.

In the age of assembly line, Jobs the rebel, came up with the I brand (people buy the I phone cover to show individuality). Even I-robots invasion into our domestic lives. As Gordon Moore continues to see his “law” be self-fulfilling, Michael Moore will produce angrier documentaries i.e. about industrial changes and worker’s displacement.

Changes that are almost at the “speed of thought”. Bill Gates could think of the title, but his successor is left holding the bag. Knowing that change is coming is one thing, adequately preparing for it is quite another. These days, one cannot fight against the machine (winning at one chess game doesn’t guarantee much). The cat is out of the bag. Even if we took the Luddites approach, 21st  century lifestyles can’t accommodate collaboration Amish-style.  We left our farms for the factories just to end up with forced leisure. No wonder micro-trends like knitting, pawning, flannel shirts are back (knitting for boys?).

Back to frontier days, and the spirit of survival. In the Golden State, digging equipment and Levis are back. The Alpha male mentality. Off the grid.

The good thing is , blue jeans are still in. If you can still fit in those. If not, off to Wal-Mart, where jeans are cheap (thanks to logistic and automation). Have you noticed there is no one around to help you find your size? Workers have all turned shoppers of goods produced by 24/7 machines that don’t take break or demand health care.

Machines can’t afford to take time off. Neither can we, but it is increasingly forced upon us.

Rare Earth beats

If you want to set the tone for the whole day, pop in Rare Earth collection which opens with a 22-minute long Get Ready followed by I Just Want to Celebrate. The name has nothing to do with current dispute between China and Japan for those planned-scarcity elements.

Get ready to celebrate.

Dream, dream, dream.

Back in the early 70’s, amidst America’s recession, oil crisis, Watergate and Vietnam, at least we got the beat (while pushing those huge Detroit automobiles inch by inch in gas line) and all sorts of movement for change (women rights, civil rights and rare species rights).

Those dudes got hair. And a slight mistrust of government conduct in world affairs (Iranian hostage crisis 1.0).

Fast forward to today’s early voting at the poll. (BTW, they are re-releasing Back to the Future series on Blu-Ray). It is said that France’s protest and Britain’s austerity foreshadow America’s future. Or worse off, Japan’s lost decade. Frantically, policy makers such as Chairman of the Fed are crunching numbers (consumer spending dropped below 70 per cent, hum, not good. What can we do to stimulate Christmas spending? Confidence index at 50, hum! We need to get it to 90) Well, we need those rare earth elements to make electronic components).

In case people forget, America has always moved forward despite setbacks. Just because it is based on checks-and-balances doesn’t mean paralysis of analysis. There is an Opinion piece in the NYT  about our corroded water system. Out of sight, out of mind.

The water department is going to shut down our neighborhood water today. It is advised that we boil our water after it is back on.

There it is. I get ready to celebrate, another day of living (with or without water in America) in Third World America (Huffington).

If I remember correctly, the Obama administration said they were opened to wiki-ideas on how to reduce unemployment (job creation).

And people have opined left and right about clean tech, smart appliances, infrastructure upgrade etc…

Nothing seems to be working. Meanwhile, large companies such as GE, IBM and COke continue to shift their workload overseas where tax incentives are irresistible. According to some accounts, GE paid zero tax for its operation in the US a few years back. I am sure it paid a lot for tax lawyers to figure that out.

So the dudes keep pushing the automobiles, except this time, it’s 40 yrs since our favorite band debut its Rare Earth collection. Get ready, I just want to celebrate. Back to the Future. Selective past is always best

when the future is uncertain. Then I understood the luring smell of a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s like mom’s cooking when you come home after being away in college. It’s the only constant in a not too favorably changing world. You know what CD I am going to play to celebrate another day of living in Amerika. Dream, dream, dream. A portrait of America Before and After Recession could be used for weight loss advertisement. People and cars both get slimmed down. Surprisingly, Rare Earth stood the test of time especially the drum solo part. It serves as a benchmark. That’s the America I first learned to admire, similar to the way Fareed described his version of America when still in India. Maybe it can still be for millions, if we can figure out the beat.